Application of Solvent Extraction to the Treatment of Industrial Wastes

There are several steps such as slicing, lapping, chemical etching and mechanical polishing in the silicon wafer production process. The chemical etching step is necessary to remove damaged layer caused In the slicing and lapping steps. The typical etching liquor is the acid mixture comprising nitric acid, acetic acid and hydrofluoric acid. At present, the waste acid is treated by a neutralization method with a high alkali cost and balky solid residue. A solvent extraction method is applicable to separate and recover each acid. Acetic acid is first separated from the waste liquor using 2-ethlyhexyl alcohols as an extractant. Then, nitric acid is recovered using TBP(Tri-butyl phosphate) as an extractant. Finally hydrofluoric acid is separated with the TBP solvent extraction. The expected recovered acids in this process are 2㏖/l acetic acid, 6㏖/1 nitric acid and 6㏖/l hydrofluoric acid. The yields of this process are almost 100% for acetic acid and nitric acid. On the other hand, it is important to recover and reuse the metal values contained in various industrial wastes in a viewpoint of environmental preservation. Most of industrial products are made through the processes to separate impurities in raw materials, solid and liquid wastes being necessarily discharged as industrial wastes. Chemical methods such as solvent extraction, ion exchange and membrane, and physical methods such as heavy media separation, magnetic separation and electrostatic separation are considered as the methods for separation and recovery of the metal values from the wastes. Some examples of the application of solvent extraction to the treatment of wastes such as Ni-Co alloy scrap, Sm-Co alloy scrap, fly ash and flue dust, and liquid wastes such as plating solution, the rinse solution, etching solution and pickling solution are introduced.