Subject: Air Filtration Market News
Here are excerpts for the month of August in the Updates to Air Filtration and Purification:World Markets. The updates reflect only some of the new additions. The analysis and revenues are constantly revised. For more information, click on:
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/air.html#N022
AIR FILTRATION UPDATE
JUNE 2005
CLEANROOM FILTERS – REQUIREMENTS AND MARKETS
FILTER DESIGN
Demands for removal of smaller and smaller particles continue in the cleanroom industry. Suppliers of filter fibers, media, and assembled filters continue to improve their products to meet this demand. Purification of cleanroom air also increasingly involves elimination of molecular contamination. Gas phase contaminants are major problems for semiconductor manufacturers. Therefore particulate removal must not be addressed without consideration of gas phase removal needs.
Membrane media has made good penetration in the filters used in Winchester disk drives. Donaldson’s Adsorbent Breather Filter (ABF) is designed to provide protection from particles, hydrocarbons and acid gases. The high efficiency filtration membrane removes particles from incoming air and encapsulates the adsorbent elements. The adsorbent is specially formulated to control humidity and to adsorb acid gases and hydrocarbons from internal and external sources.
The disk drive filter business is very big in Asia. Donaldson has opened a 30,000 square foot facility in Wuxi, China. The facility features a 10,000 square foot Class 100 Raised Floor Cleanroom for filter assembly and a state of the art Analytical Laboratory for chemical analysis of contamination. Much of the output from this plant is for disk drive manufacturers.
MARKETS
Much of the growth in filter purchases is in Asia. Cleanroom filter purchases can be segmented into those for new facilities and those for replacement of filters at existing facilities. In addition to the final Hepa filter there is typically one or more pre filters. The prefilters are much less expensive but are replaced frequently. Therefore the annual cost to the owner for the pre filters is comparable to that for the final filters. McIlvaine has forecasted the purchases of both new and replacement filters through 2008.
FINANCIALS
CLARCOR Inc. reported that second quarter 2005 net earnings increased by 16% compared to the same quarter in 2004. Sales increased by 11% compared to the prior year's second quarter.
Industrial/Environmental Filtration segment sales increased by nearly 9% from the second quarter of last year. Operating profit grew by 3%. HVAC filter sales, for both residential and commercial markets, are still slow. This is particularly true for maintenance filters sold to automobile and automobile parts manufacturers, and this trend is expected to continue for the rest of 2005.
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Bob McIlvaine