Abstract
The semiconductor material manufacturing industry has undergone rapid growth in the past few decades, and is one of the biggest industries that exhaust a large amount of waste solvent. Propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate (PGMEA) and propylene glycol monomethyl ether (PGME) are most representative photoresistor thinner components for removing the photoresistor from the substrate edges or dispensing nozzles in the semiconductor material manufacturing industry (Hussain, A. et al. 2019). A large amount of waste thinners containing PGME and PGMEA is generated when the unreacted photoresistor is removed using a photoresistor thinner. Nevertheless of their expensive cost, the use of PGME and PGMEA has rapidly increased in a wide range of products because of their important advantages such as low systemic toxicity and minor particle formation. This great value of PGME and PGMEA from economic and environmental considerations highlights the need of their efficient recovery (Chaniago, Y.D. et al., 2015, 2016). The waste photoresistor thinner can be generally reclaimed by distillation. However, the energy-intensive character of distillation restricts the economics of the waste thinner recovery process. Further, the existence of azeotropes in the waste thinners also hinders the efficient recovery by simple distillation approaches. This study was aimed to develop a novel intensified distillation process for enhanced waste PGME and PGMEA recovery. A heat integrated double dividing wall column was proposed to achieve the separation task while minimizing the capital and operating costs for the recovery process.
