GOALI: Collaborative Research: Interactions of Polishing and Incidental Nanoparticles in Chemical Mechanical Planarization Processes with Artificial Membranes and Human Cell Lines

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PI: Chen, Kai Loon#: 1605815COLLABORATIVEPI: Aravamudhan, Shyam #: 1604647Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) is one of the important semiconductor manufacturing processes used in the production of advanced electronic devices such as computers, smart phones, and tablets. The CMP process uses huge volumes (millions of tons) of silica, ceria, or alumina particles in the form of abrasive slurries to planarize electronic circuits during the manufacturing process. However, environmental safety and health (ESH) impacts from the release of used CMP slurries containing nanoparticles into the natural environment and workplace exposure are largely unknown. The objective of this research is to study the ESH impacts and interactions of both pristine and used CMP nanoparticles with artificial cell membranes and human cell lines.Even though NPs are used in a large-scale in the CMP process during the manufacture of integrated circuits, little is known about their environmental and human health impacts, particularly the transformation of nanoparticles during the CMP process and their corresponding workplace exposure, fate, behavior, and toxicity. This is mainly due to the inability to obtain access to the transformed nanoparticle slurries from the CMP process. The main objectives of this project are to (1) systematically investigate, detect, and characterize the transformation of nanoparticle slurries during the CMP processes; (2) examine the influence of CMP and incidental nanoparticles to attach to and disrupt artificial cell membranes and their ability to affect human cell lines; and (3) determine the role of nanoparticle-membrane interactions on nanoparticle toxicity.This research has the potential to be transformative because a strong understanding of the biological interactions of pristine and transformed CMP NPs is not only relevant to the electronics industry, but also has wider applicability for a number of other nanoparticle applications, which routinely undergo life-cycle transformations through different physical and chemical processes. The research results will be disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed journals and student presentations at national scientific meetings. They will also be incorporated into undergraduate and graduate courses and community outreach programs, including K-12 scientific activities for an inner-city Baltimore elementary/middle school, NanoDay activities for the local community, NanoBus after-school program, and community college engagement. Lastly, the active involvement of an industrial partner will result in implementation of better engineering controls and safer CMP processes.