PFAS: chips’ poisonous ingredient that doesn’t go away

As Europe strives to boost semiconductor capacity with the Chips Act, the use of poisonous chemicals will also increase while the treatment of hazardous waste remains largely inadequate.

Chipmakers makers use per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), synthetic substances known as ‘forever chemicals’ since they do not break down in the environment. These substances are hazardous for human health as they accumulate in the body.

These chemicals are widely used in industrial production. The Nordic Council of Ministers estimates the total number of sites potentially emitting PFAS to be in the order of 100,000 in Europe.

According to a non-exhaustive list from trade association SEMI, PFAS in semiconductor manufacturing are used in factory infrastructures such as refrigerants and structural materials, and equipment, such as chemical containers, tubes and lubricants.

In actual production, PFASs are used during the lithography phase- incising the silicon basis of the chip with the relevant geometrical shapes, and for etching, an operation that removes unnecessary parts with chemical agents.

In Taiwan, the world’s top chip producer, the contamination of rivers with PFAS and other dangerous chemicals has been documented since 2009. The contamination occurred via wastewaters and concerned PFOS and PFOA, two of the most hazardous kinds of ‘forever chemicals’.

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Europe’s situation

The recent Commission’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability included a proposal to restrict all uses of PFAS under the regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), which is the bible for the EU’s chemical hazard management.

Even before, the EU adopted a stringent approach in addressing the prevention and control of emissions of PFAS under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) and in the Water Framework Directive.

This commitment did not prevent scandals related to PFOS and PFOA in Europe, although not directly related to semiconductor production. Cases include Chemours in the Netherlands, Solvey in Italy, and 3M in Belgium.

In Antwerp, water pollution was such that the Flemish government recently warned against eating self-produced eggs and vegetables in the whole of Flanders.

From PFOS to PFAS

Before PFAS, perfluorooctane sulfonates (PFOS) was the other group of ‘forever chemicals’ developed for industrial purposes and widely used in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices.

A phase-out from PFOS has been discussed since the 2000s and was put in place by the World Semiconductor Council (WSC) in 2017.

Around 2010, the industry also started phasing out PFOA. However, there are over 6,000 types of PFAS currently known, each with some similar characteristics and risks.

In 2020, the US Environmental Protection Agency found that even PFAS chemicals deemed obsolete were still largely used in manufacturing semiconductors and electronic devices.

“We use a small but critical amount of short-chain PFAS materials in our semiconductor manufacturing process,” an Intel spokesperson told EURACTIV, adding that the company voluntarily eliminated PFOS and PFOA from their supply chain and committed to no longer use long-chain PFAS.

“Producers say short-chain PFAS are less dangerous. Indeed, long-chain compounds have higher bioaccumulation and are generally more toxic. However, short-chain molecules can disperse more easily in the environment, especially in water,” said Tessa Pancras, remediation specialist at Arcadis and member of the Dutch expertise centre on PFAS.

“In the next decade, we will have a problem with the shorter chain compounds because, like all PFAS, they also do not biodegrade in the environment,” Pancras stressed, noting how in the past, the toxicity of PFAS had been systematically underestimated.

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Don’t let any PFAS out

Last year, the Netherlands opened a call for evidence until the end of 2021, accompanying a summary report to collect stakeholder feedback.

The document estimated that 1,485 tonnes of PFAS are used every year for producing semiconductors in the European Economic Area – the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Moreover, it pointed out that “the growth in PFAS emissions depends on the growth in the electronics industry (including semiconductors).”

The report estimated that by 2030, PFAS emissions in Europe would range between 2,000 tons and 10,000 tons per year.

“The only way to currently guarantee that PFASs are used safely is to have a completely closed system and never let any of that material out into the environment,” said Peter Simpson, a senior scientific officer at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

However, that would require that no traces of PFASs are left in the final product.

“The PFAS used in the photolithography process are typically no longer present in the finished product. However, there are applications where PFAS are present in the final semiconductor device,” said industry association SEMI in a statement.

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A waste problem

The only way to dispose of PFASs is to incinerate them at very high temperatures. However, Martijn Beekman, the PFAS restriction project manager behind the consultation for the Dutch government, warned that the waste disposal infrastructure is often inadequate.

“A lot of waste in Europe still goes to landfills. Not in all incinerators, the temperatures would be high enough. It’s very hard for us to find accurate data of really how much PFAS ends up in the environment,” Beekman said. “Since PFASs do not break down, their stock can only grow.”

Moreover, while the manufacturers of PFAS and semiconductors know about the dangerous chemicals, that is not necessarily the case for those that see chips as just a part of broader machinery or for a consumer disposing of an electronic product.

“It’s a long supply chain, a lot of information is lost,” Beekman added, stressing that a company should be responsible for such dangerous products throughout their entire lifecycle.

Gerardo Fortuna contributed to reporting.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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