Abstract: In a Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) process for forming carbon nanomaterials, a supply of acetylene gas is filtered by a filter to remove a volatile hydrocarbon gas before the acetylene gas is provided to a mass flow controller. The mass flow controller can mix the filtered acetylene gas with a supply of the volatile hydrocarbon gas so that a gas mixture has a selected proportion of the volatile hydrocarbon gas. The filter performs the filtering by passing the acetylene gas over active carbon.