Production of High Value Fluorine Gases for the Semiconductor Industry. Small Business Innovation Research Program Phase II Final Report.

摘要

The chemistry to manufacture high purity GeF(sub 4) and WF(sub 6) for use in the semiconductor industry using Starmet's new fluorine extraction technology has been developed. Production of GeF(sub 4) was established using a tube-style reactor system where conversion yields as high as 98.1% were attained for the reaction between and GeO(sub 2). Collection of the fluoride gas improved to 97.7% when the reactor sweep gas contained a small fraction of dry air (10-12 vol%) along with helium. The lab-synthesized product was shown to contain the least amount of infrared active and elemental impurities when compared with a reference material certified at 99.99% purity. Analysis of the 'as-produced' gas using ICP-MS showed that uranium could not be detected at a detection limit of 0.019 ppm-wt. A process to make WF(sub 6) from WO(sub 2), and UF(sub 4), produced a WOF(sub 4) intermediate, which proved difficult to convert to tungsten hexafluoride using titanium fluorine as a fluorinating agent.