Removal of nanoparticles from CMP wastewater by magnetic seeding aggregation

CMP wastewaters have high solids content resulted from abrasive nanoparticles. Tremendous amount of ultrapure water consumption also makes the removal of nanoparticles from CMP wastewaters an important issue. Magnetic seeding aggregation of silica nanoparticles from the oxide CMP wastewater is studied in this work. Magnetite nanoparticles were synthesized and used as seeding particles. The turbidity of the CMP wastewater was reduced from 110 NTU to 7 NTU when solution pH was 6 and no addition of salt. This is because silica and magnetite nanoparticles were highly oppositely charged and the aggregation between silica and magnetite nanoparticles was achieved by electrostatic attractions. When the seeded wastewater was placed in a magnetic field strength higher than 800 G, the turbidity of the CMP wastewater was reduced to 1 NTU, which was clearer than the CMP wastewater treated by many other technologies.