Computer chip manufacturers are facing a couple of tough challenges: one environmental, the other purely technical. Every year, a typical chip-making plant sucks up about four million gallons of ultrapure water and uses an ocean of toxic chemicals to scrub and prepare microchips for use. At the same time, companies in the highly competitive industry are trying to further shrink transistors and other devices on chips to continue to make computers and other microelectronics cheaper and faster. The solution to both these challenges could come from an unlikely source: carbon dioxide.

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