The Northern European Membrane Separation Systems Market Growing
Revenues estimate to reach 1 billion dollars
London, UK — The Northern European membrane separation systems market is passing through a high growth phase catalysed by steadily increasing demand from both the municipal and the industrial segments of the market.
The need to ensure safe and secure supply of drinking water is encouraging municipalities to deploy membrane systems to tackle persistent contaminants such as pesticides and bacteria. At the same time, the demand for high purity process water in key industrial sectors such as pharmaceuticals, together with increasing use of membrane-based wastewater treatment systems to meet stringent EU Directives is promoting overall market expansion.
Frost & Sullivan finds that the Northern European Membrane Separation Systems Market earned revenues of $680 million in 2005 and estimates this to reach $1 billion by 2012.
"The Northern European membrane separation systems market provides growth opportunities in almost all countries across both municipal and industrial sectors," says Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Fredrick Harry Royan. "This is largely because membrane systems have proved their importance in adding value in applications for process separation and also fulfilling critical needs in terms of high purity water and wastewater treatment across industrial and municipal segments, thereby meeting stringent legislative standards mandated by EU Directives."
The process separation application in the industrial segment, which currently dominates the overall market, is constantly expanding in size. It is building on innovative membrane systems that are helping membrane system suppliers, consolidate present market positions and expanding into new market applications.
The legislative-driven market applications of membrane systems comprising industrial wastewater treatment and municipal drinking water and wastewater treatment, are being realised with the steady implementation of these standards. Both end-user segments are now progressively falling in line with compliance requirements, thereby providing relevant opportunities for membrane systems.
One of the key challenges for membrane separation systems remains the need for membrane systems to meet the highly specific and critical operational needs of end-user segments.
"This is highlighted by the fact that even industrial end-user segments such as food and beverage and pharmaceuticals have varying process water quality requirements," observes Mr. Royan. "In the municipal sector, the use of membranes is largely to counter specific problem elements such as heavy metals, pesticides or even bacterial contamination, while process separation has a wide range of operating conditions that membrane systems are required to sustain for functions such as clarifying and concentration."
Therefore, it is imperative for membrane separation system suppliers to understand the specific needs of key end-user segments such as food and beverage and pharmaceuticals and aim to customise their membrane solutions. By doing so, they would effectively address the specific requirements and capitalise on the constantly expanding opportunities in the European membrane separation systems market.
SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan