chemical engineering research and design 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 442–452 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Research and Design journa l h o me pa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/cherd Analysis, modelling and simulation of hydrogen peroxide ultrapurification by multistage reverse osmosis R. Abejón, A. Garea * , A. Irabien Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Química Inorgánica, Universidad de Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Cantabria, Spain a b s t r a c t Very high purity chemicals are required for preparation of semiconductor materials and manufacture of printed circuit boards because low presence of metallic impurities is needed to avoid defects on silicon surface. Hydrogen peroxide is one of the most demanded chemical by the semiconductor industry and it must be submitted to ultrapu- rification processes to achieve the exigent requirements the chemical must fulfill to be accepted for semiconductor uses. In this paper, the potential of multistage reverse osmosis processes to reduce the metallic content of technical grade hydrogen peroxide below the limits fixed by the semiconductor industry is investigated. SEMI Grade 1 quality hydrogen peroxide was obtained by a two-pass reverse osmosis process in an experimental lab scale. A model based on Kedem-Katchalsky transport equations together with system material balances was proposed to describe the behavior of the installation. A full analysis of the influence of the design (recovery rates) and operation (applied pres- sures) variables over the performance of a simulated industrial scale plant was carried out. The economic viability of the simulated plant was demonstrated. © 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Ultrapurification; Electronic grade chemicals; Hydrogen peroxide; Reverse osmosis 1. Introduction There is probably no industry more concerned for and com- mitted to contamination control than the semiconductor industry. The production of semiconductor devices requires very exigent demands for the environment and the equip- ment. All the critical manufacturing steps are performed under cleanroom conditions in order to minimize contam- ination in the working environment and semiconductor manufacturing equipment is made of non-contaminating materials. The chemicals and materials used to manufacture and package semiconductors and printed circuit boards are considered electronic chemicals (Daigle et al., 2007). The purity of these electronic chemicals is as important as the environ- ment and the equipment. A typical silicon wafer might be treated with several different liquids (wet electronic chem- icals) during the manufacturing process. Because the wet chemicals are in intimate contact with silicon surfaces, their particulate and ionic impurity levels are of great concern. Par- ticles that adhere to the wafers can cause short circuits or open ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: abejonr@unican.es (R. Abejón), gareaa@unican.es (A. Garea). Received 23 March 2011; Received in revised form 28 June 2011; Accepted 27 July 2011 circuits resulting in devices failure (Duffalo and Monkowski, 1984). Metallic ionic impurities also entail problems: certain metals and other ionic impurities are known to deposit on bare silicon or silicon dioxide. These trace impurities on the surfaces of silicon wafers adversely affect the electrical characteristics of silicon devices: they cause a loss of oxide integrity and act as minority carrier lifetime killers (Atsumi et al., 1990). Hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) is one of the most employed wet electronic chemical (Sievert, 2001) because of its use for cleaning silicon wafer surfaces of foreign contaminants, removing photoresists or etching copper on printed circuit boards (Daigle et al., 2007). Most usual cleaning baths for silicon wafer surface cleaning (SC1, SC2 or SPM) include hydro- gen peroxide in their formulations (Olson et al., 2000). Said baths remove particulate, organic and metallic pollutants from silicon surfaces. Semiconductor Equipment and Mate- rials International (SEMI) is the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chains for the micro- electronic, display and photovoltaic industries. This entity 0263-8762/$ – see front matter © 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cherd.2011.07.025