SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY : Dynachem Purchases Technology to Treat Waste Substances

The electronics industry is gradually waking up to environmental problems, and a large Tustin-based producer of specialty chemicals is hoping to cash in on the new-found concern.

Dynachem, a $200-million subsidiary of Morton International, has purchased technology from a Lowell, Mass., company that has discovered a way to remove some of the poisonous substances produced in the manufacture of computer circuit boards and microchips.

Daniel D. Feinberg, senior vice president of Dynachem, said his company was so eager to acquire a more environmentally sound process for treating certain wastes that it may have even “paid more than it was worth” to TMC Corp. He declined to say how much Dynachem paid.

“We really wanted to get moving on this thing,” Feinberg said.

The technology enables circuit board and chip manufacturers to virtually eliminate the discharge of photoresist, a substance used in etching circuit patterns onto boards and chips. Traditional processes leave the photoresist in a solution with the photo-developing chemicals, and the whole solution then has to be treated and discarded.

The TMC method produces a dry cake of photoresist for disposal, thus easing the burden on wastewater-treatment systems and reducing the quantity of hazardous materials generated by the process. “There’s definitely much greater awareness than in the past of the need for this kind of thing,” Feinberg said.