ThermVac Moves Into Japan’s Special Vacuum Furnace Market

HWASEONG, South Korea–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#CarbonPurification—ThermVac Inc., Korea’s specialty manufacturer for vacuum furnaces, said that the carbon purification vacuum furnace which has been installed in the Pohang plant of Ibiden Graphite Korea, a Korean unit of Japan’s Ibiden Co., Ltd., is currently working successfully.

With a loading capacity of 2,000 kg (work zone: 4.5m3, 1500W*1500H*2000D mm), this equipment is a super-large furnace purifying the carbon products to be used in semiconductor, photovoltaic and fiber optics industries. At the maximum temperature of 2400�C, chlorine gas is flowed into the retort muffle inside the hot zone and the metal impurities contained in the carbon product are converted into chlorides and then exhausted, thereby reducing the content of impurities to 5 ppm or less.

An official of Ibiden said, “Unlike other Japanese furnaces, the purification furnace of ThermVac 1) can maintain the pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the retort muffle at an optimal level, discharge all the chloride to the furnace outside and thereby keep the interior of the vacuum furnace very clean. 2) The opening and closing device of the retort muffle door is so convenient that one worker can do sample loading/unloading work, which was previously done by two or more people. 3) Since the structure of the hot zone including the heater and the electrode is easy to disassemble and assemble, the repair work of the hot zone that took at least 2 days can be performed within 4 to 5 hours. 4) The process cycle has been shortened by more than 10 hours through the forced cooling of the hot zone by nitrogen circulation.”

After securing elemental technology through the localization of carbon purification furnace for two years, which has been supported by the Korean government’s technology development project, ThermVac has continuously researched the carbon purifying process with in-house equipment, accumulating process technology and building equipment application capabilities. Based on this effort, it now becomes possible to overcome the limitations of the narrow domestic market and boldly challenge the large markets of materials and parts such as Japan and China.

Recently, ThermVac has developed and completed a two-chamber type carbon purification furnace with a structure that separates the heating chamber and the cooling chamber and is now verifying its durability. By shortening the cycle of the carbon purification process that takes more than 30 hours to 6 to 9 hours, through commercialization of the two-chamber model, ThermVac intends to contribute to the expansion of the global market for high-purity carbon, which is explosively increasing in demand for secondary batteries, semiconductors and photovoltaic applications.

Contacts

ThermVac

In-Seok Choi

+ 82-31-351-4490

thermvac@thermvac.co.kr