I do a lot of work in the ultra-pure water filtration industry. Given that this has been a recurring problem, I'm surprised that trucking in extra water is more economical than recovering and reusing waste water. It's also amazing just how much water and especially ultra pure water is consumed - about 2,200 gallons of which 1,600 are UPW for a single 30cm wafer.[0]
An uncle of mine has a sawmill/wood moldings factory. They ran into some regulatory problems when they tried recycling water.
They recycled so many times that evaporation losses concentrated the copper and lead in the city water until it became too high to discharge. They were not adding any new metals, just concentrating what was already there as far as they could tell.
They had to start consuming more water to dilute the process water back below discharge limits.
Last I heard they were looking into some kind of ION exchange to capture the heavy metals, but the economics were not good.
I assume a Chip fab does not have a bunch of leaky steam pipes so they have less evaporation losses, but they probably have more regulated chemicals in their used wash water.
I had no idea how much water was consumed by the semiconductor industry, although I did know about the incredible energy usage and generation of toxic waste. What if the most unsustainable parts of a car are the semiconductors in the infotainment system?
4 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 14.8 ms ] thread[0] https://www.chinawaterrisk.org/resources/analysis-reviews/8-...
They recycled so many times that evaporation losses concentrated the copper and lead in the city water until it became too high to discharge. They were not adding any new metals, just concentrating what was already there as far as they could tell.
They had to start consuming more water to dilute the process water back below discharge limits.
Last I heard they were looking into some kind of ION exchange to capture the heavy metals, but the economics were not good.
I assume a Chip fab does not have a bunch of leaky steam pipes so they have less evaporation losses, but they probably have more regulated chemicals in their used wash water.
If water prices were higher, they would use less.