The Freedonia Group: Polymeric Membranes Continue to Dominate US Membrane Separation Technologies.

Business Editors

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 27, 2004

The value of the membrane materials market is forecast to advance 8.4 percent per year to $2.7 billion in 2008. Growth will be fueled by the increasing use of value-added, high-performance membranes, including ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis types. Advances will also be driven by a shift away from more basic cellulose versions toward membranes made from specialty polymers and to other materials such as ceramics and silver. Overall price growth will be restrained by the improvement in membrane material production technology, making membranes less expensive. Additionally, as more manufacturers enter the market, price competition will increase.

Polymeric membrane materials, including cellulose acetate, polysulfone, nylon and others, will continue to dominate the market because they have lower initial costs and greater product flexibility than nonpolymeric materials. Cellulosic membranes, the least expensive membrane material, are projected to continue to account for the largest share of polymer membranes, with 58 percent of sales value in 2008. However, growth in demand for nonpolymeric materials, including ceramic, metal and composite types, will record more rapid gains, because of their better performance in extreme temperatures and corrosive environments.

Growth will be most rapid for ultrafiltration membranes, which are used in a wide variety of systems as the primary separation step and as a pretreatment step before higher level separation membranes. Gains are also projected to be strong for reverse osmosis membranes, which have the smallest pores and thus achieve a high level of purification. Microfiltration membranes represent a better established and more mature application, benefiting from their wide use as pretreatment membranes. Other types of separation technologies that incorporate membranes include pervaporation, nanofiltration, dialysis, electrodialysis and gas separation.

Key markets for membranes include water and wastewater treatment, food and beverage processing, pharmaceutical and medical applications, chemical processing and industrial gas separations. The water and wastewater treatment market accounted for 54 percent of membrane demand in 2003. These and other trends are presented in "Membrane Separation Technologies," a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industrial research firm.