Green CVD

Purpose and goal:

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD), is used to deposit thin layers and coatings of different materials, for everything from the production of electronic devices to hard coatings on cutting tools. CVD is thus, direct or indirect, very important for a large number of industries. CVD uses and consumes large quantities of gases and energy and thus has an enormous potential for improvement form a sustainability perspective. This project seek to unlock that potential.

Expected results and effects:

The results from the project will be able to be used by Sandvik Coromant and Seco Tools to lower their production costs and allow them to produce coated carbide in a more sustainable way. The CVD reactor manufacturer Epiluvac, with mainly international customers in the electronics industry, can utilize various solutions for resource-efficient CVD in their design of CVD reactors for the electronics industry, giving them a sustainability advantage over their competitors as well as spreading the results from the project to the electronics industry.

Approach and implementation:

The project will develop a reactor design for a CVD reactor that enables a higher use of the added molecules compared to today´s CVD processes. The new reactor will also be designed with minimal thermal budget and vacuum volume, which also minimizes electricity consumption.

The project will also develop a model to quantify the sustainability of a CVD process with regard to environmental impact. The model must be made so general that it can be applied to a given CVD process, which will lead to the project having a positive effect on all CVD processes in all industries.