To achieve sustainable business, every company should strive to address climate change and mitigate climate impact. TSMC committed to reaching Net Zero Emissions by 2050 and also published its Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Report. In addition to implementing climate risk control and mitigation actions, TSMC also actively drives the implementation of low-carbon emissions management within the whole supply chain. TSMC encourages LCO2 suppliers to design carbon capture facilities for distillation towers to reintroduce the residual low purity CO2 gas into the process for secondary purification, and then remanufactures it into electronic-grade products. Those products should meet TSMC’s quality specifications, and will improve the resilience of the green supply chain. As of August 2022, 500 metric tons of CO2 have been successfully captured.
Green supply chain plays an important role for TSMC to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Through close collaboration with our suppliers, we continue to explore opportunities for energy saving and carbon reduction to drive sustainable development of the environment.
Distillation Tower Retrofit for Residual CO2 Gas Capture and Purification
The industrial-grade LCO2 becomes electronic-grade LCO2 through the purification process in distillation tower, using the characteristic of different boiling point between CO2 and other gases. The high-purity CO2 can be separated and liquefied to electronic-grade LCO2 through the refrigerator, which is the key raw material for the semiconductor process, while the lower-purity CO2 gas will be vented into atmosphere. TSMC considers the carbon emissions generated from its supply chain as an important factor, and launched the "Carbon capture project of LCO2 suppliers" in the first quarter of 2021 to protect environment and increase the usage efficiency of CO2. TSMC encourages suppliers to capture the separated low purity CO2 by modifying the vent pipeline of the distillation tower, and then recycle it back to the tower for re-purification. The optimized purification efficiency is over 90% with higher efficiency refrigerator, which effectively improves the efficiency of energy utilization.
Establish LCO2 Tanker Residual Recycling System to Further Improve Carbon Capture Efficiency
TSMC continues to expand carbon capture opportunities in supply chain management and encourages suppliers to design a LCO2 tanker residual recycling system for their return-to-factory tankers. The LCO2 residual in the tanker is first vaporized when passing through the new recycle line and condensed to liquid phase by the refrigerator, and then it enters the recycling tank and re-directs back to the distillation process for purification. The facility construction was completed in July 2022 and is currently under trial run, which is expected to extra 1,000 metric tons carbon reduction per year. Also, TSMC encourages all suppliers who directly emit carbon dioxide during manufacturing to set up carbon capture facilities and make efforts for the development of a sustainable semiconductor supply chain.
Diagram of TSMC Supplier’s Carbon Capture Process
