Industry News
US DEMAND FOR DISINFECTANT
AND ANTIMICROBIAL CHEMICALS
TO REACH $1.2B IN 2013
Demand for disinfectant and antimicrobial chemicals is projected to increase
3.6% annually to $1.2 billion in 2013.
Although this represents a substantial
deceleration in value gains from the
2003-2008 period, growth in volume will
accelerate due to rebounding production
levels in key industrial markets such as
coatings and plastics. The strong value
gains in the previous five-year period
were due in large part to price runups
from 2005 to 2008, when the price of
crude oil and other raw materials
soared. These and other trends are presented in “Disinfectant & Antimicrobial
Chemicals,” a new study from The
Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-
based industry research firm.
Demand for disinfectant chemicals in
industrial, institutional and commercial, and consumer markets is expected
to grow, despite considerable scientific
disagreement about the necessity of
using disinfectant chemicals in many of
their current applications. Gains in the
consumer market—the fastest-growing
overall—will be driven by fears of food-borne and other pathogens, as disinfectant active ingredients are being added
to many traditional cleaning products
that have not typically contained such
ingredients. In the health care market,
there is broad agreement that aggressive infection control programs are necessary. As a result, it will remain one of
the largest outlets for these products.
Use of these chemicals in antimicro-
bial additive applications, such as in
paints, plastics or textile products, is
less controversial. These applications
are less likely to create an environment
that could lead to the formation of
resistant strains of bacteria, and the
chemicals are used to prolong the functional lives of these products. However,
there are environmental concerns about
some of these additives.
Organosulfurs will be the fastest-growing product category, due mainly to
developments in the paint and coatings
industry, the largest user of these products. Not only is overall coatings production expected to rebound from a poor
performance in 2008, but organosulfurs
are likely to be the leading replacement
for tributyl tin (TBT) in the marine
antifoulant segment. CW
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