Large Scale Treatment of Perfluorocompounds Using a Thermal Plasma Scrubber

Abstract

Thermal plasma has been presented for the decomposition of perfluorocompounds (PFCs) which are extensively used in the semiconductor manufacturing and display industry. We developed pilot-scale equipment to investigate the large scale treatment of PFCs and called it a “thermal plasma scrubber”. PFCs such as CF4, C2F6, SF6, and NF3 used in experiments were diluted with N2. There were two different types of experiment setup related to the water spray direction inside the thermal plasma scrubber. The first type was that the water was sprayed directly into the gas outlet located at the exit of the reaction section. The second type was that the water was sprayed on the wall of the quenching section. More effective decomposition took place when the water was sprayed on the quenching section wall. For C2F6, SF6, and NF3 the maximum destruction and removal efficiency was nearly 100%, and for CF4 was up to 93%.