Pharma industry to drive activated carbon growth
five per cent per year to reach 1.2m metric tons by 2010, fuelled
by increased use in the pharmaceutical sector.
Activated carbon, or charcoal, is used in pharmaceutical industry primarily as an adsorbent to remove pollutants during the drug manufacturing process.
The Asia/Pacific region presents the greatest opportunity for growth, where this market is expected to nearly double by 2010, led by China, which is expected to increase its share of the global activated carbon market to 13 per cent, according to a report by market research firm The Freedonia Group.
Smaller emerging markets, including Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Africa/Middle East region, will also record above average gains.
"In these developing markets, gains will be driven in all sectors by increasing economic growth and industrial output," said the report, titled 'World Activated Carbon.'
"Growing environmental concerns in these regions will also spur new growth in applications such as water treatment, flue gas treatment and hazardous waste remediation," said the report.
While growth rates in the most mature carbon markets of North America, Western Europe and Japan are expected to slow down, they will still continue to account for over half of carbon demand and in these markets in particular, activated carbon use in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors offers the strongest growth prospects.
Meanwhile, granular activated and specialty grade carbon products are poised to erode the current dominance of powdered activated carbon in the market.
"Many of the market niches that show the most promise - such as catalysts, gas separation and storage, and air pollution control - tend to prefer granular or specialty grades," said the report.
Furthermore, the advantage of granular material lies in its ability to be regenerated - this will allow it to gradually penetrate the water treatment and sugar processing markets, currently the largest consumers of powdered carbon.
