Reduction of Solvent Wastes in the Electronics Industry. Waste Reduction Grant Program

摘要

The microelectronics component manufacturing processes at Hewlett Packard's San Jose facility were used as a model to study the techniques required to reduce the volume and type of organic solvent wastes in the electronics industry. Although organic solvent wastes are produced from numerous complex wafer fabrication steps, the volume and type of solvents utilized in each step were documented and evaluated for waste reduction. The study indicates that up to a 70% reduction in organic solvent waste volume at the facility could be realized. This represents a potential cost savings to Hewlett Packard of up to $414,000 per year in disposal costs and chemical purchase costs. The findings of this study indicate that solvent segregation, solvent substitution, direct solvent reuse, and distillation/evaporation are the primary solvent handling processes that could be utilized to accomplish this reduction.