Water treatment market in Europe

In a recent assessment, market analyst Frost & Sullivan valued the European market for industrial process water treatment equipment at around $761 million. Within this market, the highly advanced and diversely used membrane separation system stood out as the clear industry leader, accounting for more than half of the total market revenue.

The trend suggests that it is set to grow at a steady rate over the next three years at around a double-digit compound annual growth rate, and will generate market revenue of approximately $555 million by 2007.

The diverse capabilities of membrane separation systems has meant that industries could choose a system that is ideally suited to provide them with the required quality of process water.

In a previous Frost and Sullivan study on the European industrial process water treatment equipment market, reverse osmosis membranes dominated the membrane scene with close to half the market revenue and were forecasted to grow at a steady rate. The applications it is extensively used for are ultra water for the electronic industry, food processing industry and pharmaceutical grade water.

Ultrafiltration constituted a third of the market revenue and is expected to increase its market share as they become increasingly used in the growing sectors of biotech and pharmaceuticals for preparation of ultra-pure water. And microfiltration systems, although constituting just a tenth of the market share in revenue, are expected to grow at a steady rate with its increased use in the food and beverage and pharmaceutical industry.

According to Frost & Sullivan, a key driver for the domination of membrane systems is the growing realisation that setting up water abstraction and treatment processes is economically beneficial and ensures desired quality requirements.

For example, the European Pharmaceutical industry is the world's leader in manufacturing, ahead of the US and is the only high technology sector that has been showing a growing positive trade balance. The industry has very specific purified water requirements in line with the USP (US Pharmacopoeia) standards and membrane separations systems play a crucial role in water purification systems designed for the pharmaceutical industry.

One such modular system is provided by USFilter in the PreVUE series. It consists of a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane, which receive water after it has passed through a couple of softeners and an activated carbon column. The RO is the heart of the treatment system and removes dissolved solids, particulates, colloids, organic compounds, bacterial and endotoxins from the water.

A Frost & Sullivan study in 2001 on the European industrial process water treatment equipment market showed a good degree of market segmentation. A majority of industrial water treatment equipment suppliers had membrane separation systems as a part of their product portfolio. Also, unlike other treatment equipment markets where a couple of players dominate the market, here five companies - Veolia Water Systems, Degrémont, BWT/Christ Holland, Gromtmij and DHV Water - accounted for three quarters of the market revenue.

Although there are five dominant companies in the membrane separation market, there is significant scope for new participants in the market particularly to cater to the substantial number of small and medium enterprises that constitute a major portion of the key industrial sectors of food and drink.

With the near saturation in the Western European market, the players who have entered the market recently and are finding it difficult to make inroads could well refocus their strategy towards Eastern Europe. With the accession of 10 new member states into the European Union, there has been an increase in investment and industrial growth is expected to be on the upward trend in the region.

Recent figures gathered by Frost & Sullivan suggests that the membrane separations segment in Eastern Europe is very promising and is the only segment - other than ozonation - in the industrial process water treatment equipment market to have a growth rate close to the double-digit mark.

In much of Europe, close to three quarters of freshwater is consumed by the industrial sector. Almost all industries at some point of the process stage require high-purity water for manufacturing, in cooling towers, as boiler feed water, rinsing, cleaning and ensuring product quality.

Frost & Sullivan is in the process of re-evaluating the current market sizes of membrane separation systems as part of a study on the European industrial water and wastewater treatment equipment market. Visit the company's website​ for further information on this report, which will be published in the summer of 2004.