Suppliers of ultrapure water hardware and consumables will generate revenues of $4.4 billion in 2014. The power industry will be the largest purchaser.  These are the conclusions reached in Ultrapure Water World Markets, a continually updated publication of the McIlvaine Company.  (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

Ultrapure water is needed to create the steam in a coal-fired power plant. The development of ultra supercritical boilers with very high pressures and temperatures has increased the purity requirements. The ultrapure water system includes a series of filtration, purification and degassing steps. Special materials are required to ensure that no contamination is created in the processing. Consumables such as replacement membranes and ion-exchange resins are needed.

There has been a recent trend toward electrodeionization as a replacement for ion-exchange. The elimination of cleaning chemicals and the replacement resins is advantageous from both an operating and environmental perspective.

East Asia is a fast growing market.  There are many new semiconductor plants. China will install more new coal-fired boilers each year than all of Europe, Africa and the Americas combined.   Major pharmaceutical companies are establishing generics manufacturing in China and other East Asian countries.

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Sales of cartridges to filter solids from liquids will rise to over $15 billion next year.  The residential point of use segment will account for 27 percent of the total.  This is the conclusion reached by the McIlvaine Company in its continually updated Cartridge Filters: World Market report.  (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

More than 50 percent of the sales will be for commercial and residential applications. The pharmaceutical industry will be the largest industrial purchaser. Cartridges are used to separate products as well as to remove contaminants.  Companies such as Pall and Millipore are large suppliers of product recovery filters.

The healthcare industry uses cartridges for purifying water as well as blood and other fluids. Municipal wastewater plants use very few cartridges. The reason is that cartridges are not self cleaning. Most municipal applications involve removal of large quantities of solids. Filter presses and sand filters are, therefore, found to be more economical.

In recent years a cleanable version of the cartridge has been developed. McIlvaine has classified this category as automatic back-wash filters. Sales of these filters are modest presently but there is a longer term threat to cartridge suppliers.  Another competing product is the bag filter.  Both bag filters and automatic back-wash filters are included in a separate report.

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