Investigation of the Efficiency of Activated Carbon for the Removal of Diethyltellurium from a Carrier Gas Stream.

In this study, we have used mass spectrometry to investigate the efficiency of activated carbon as a scrubbing agent for removal of organometallic tellurium compounds from a vapor stream. Using a common tellurium source for organometallic chemical vapor deposition, diethyltellurium, we find that activated charcoal scrubbing is very efficient, removing this compound to below our detection limit of 10 ppb. We have investigated the effect of carbon loading, flow and concentration, on the scrubbing efficiency of two different types of charcoal and a granular alumina.