Lowell Center for Sustainable Production examines the “precarious promise” of engineered carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
Despite uncertainty about their environmental and health effects, technologies relying on CNTs have developed at warp speed, says the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production. CNTs share characteristics with ultrafine air pollution particles and asbestos fibers and are small enough to penetrate cells, yet only a tiny fraction of these materials’ R&D budgets have been spent on assessing their toxicology. The report calls for accelerating work to incorporate consideration of health impacts into design and decision-making as CNT development continues.