Practical Reuse of Activated Carbon in the Exhaust Facility of Semiconductor Production Factory with Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Regeneration

Abstract

An possible reason why the activated carbon used in the exhaust facility of real semiconductor production factory could not be regenerated by scCO₂ regeneration was estimated to be attributable to its high boiling point adsorbates which showed a peak in TGA (Thermogravimetric analysis) curve at 400-900°C. This study was conducted to experimentally verify the above insight by using TGA analysis and scCO₂ regeneration for the real samples with different loads from the factory. The experimental results showed that high boiling point ratio defined by TGA analysis was less than 4.0% in case of the heating treatment temperature of 200 °C in the exhasut facility of real semiconductor production factory. This result suggested regeneration rate of the activated carbon was higher than 80%. Our scCO₂ regeneration process can achieve high efficiency as a practical application.