MOCVD waste gas treatment

A large scale production of GaAs based solar cells with MOCVD will give rise to a considerable use of arsine. Therefore a gas treatment system is needed to convert the waste gasses into less toxic compounds. In this study seven different gas treatment systems for MOCVD are compared by quantifying the environmental aspects. The systems are divided in wet systems, adsorption systems and thermal systems. The smallest amount of waste is produced by adsorption and thermal systems. Adsorption systems use the smallest amount of energy. The amount of primary materials used for the equipment varies per system. All systems are safe, but adsorption systems are simplest. At the moment adsorption systems are probably the best choice from an environmental point of view. Nevertheless thermal systems have some potential advantages which make them interesting for the future