One process commonly used to produce carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, may release several hundred tons of chemicals into the air each year. In a paper published last week on the ACS Nano website, Professor Phil Gschwend, alumna Desiree Plata and co-authors report that removing one step in that process could reduce harmful emissions by at least tenfold and, in some cases, by a factor of 100. It also could cut the amount of energy used in the process by half. Read a news story.