Showa Denko To Make LCD Cleaning Gas

Showa Denko has started construction of a 400-metric-ton-per-year plant to produce environmentally friendly carbonyl fluoride (COF₂) gas for use in manufacturing liquid-crystal displays. It expects the new facility to come on-line this summer in Japan. LCD manufacturers now use nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride as etching and cleaning gases, but both have a significantly higher global-warming impact than COF₂, which has the same impact as carbon dioxide. So far, few companies make COF₂, but Showa Denko claims it has solved the purification issues involved.