Bevan S. Whitehead, PhD Candidate at the University of Rochester
“Research is difficult, but you can and will do it. It may take longer than you think, but you will do it.”
Perfluorocompound gases (e.g. CF4, C2F6, and NF3) play pivotal roles in semiconductor manufacturing as plasma etchants and deposition chamber cleaning agents. However, owing to their long atmospheric lifetimes, 103-104 years, intense heat-trapping capabilities and kinetic inertness to atmospheric conditions, PFC gases possess global warming potentials that are orders of magnitude higher than that of CO2. Some preliminary work has been done in the past ten years, to design adsorbents to capture these PFCs, but ideal materials have not been found. My approach was to utilize the literature framework, Zn(fba). This framework has two types of pores, a perfluorinated 6Å circular pore and an inkbottle-type pore with an aperture of 3.5Å and an internal diameter of 4 Å. Using a variety of techniques, we have been able to model where the gas molecules are being trapped in the molecule, the uptake kinetics, and the degree of selectivity of this material for CF4 vs. N2. Our research has shown that Zn(fba) has one of the highest CF4 vs. N2 selectivities for all known water-stable sorbents, while remaining completely inert to both water and O2. This approach offer insight into methods for the capture of PFCs vs. N2 along with information about the uptake kinetics and selectivity of these materials, which will allow us better design materials with larger CF4 selectivities and more favorable kinetic profiles.
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