Process spectroscopy - using equipment originally developed for the laboratory sector alongside monitoring strategies developed for the process industries - represented a market of $178 million (€136m) in 2004, but will grow at more than 5 per cent a year to reach $232 million in 2009, according to new market research from Business Communications Co.
Part, but not all of this increase can be attributed to the roll out and adoption of newer technologies such as near infrared and Raman spectrometers.
NIR monitors are expected to constitute the largest segment of the market in 2009, with sales of $71 million, as this is one of the primary technologies that will fulfill the aims of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s PAT initiative, which aims to use real-time monitoring of processes to improve yields, raise quality standards and reduce wastage in the pharmaceutical industry.
However, the highest rate of growth of any instrument type is expected among Raman spectrometers, with an average annual growth rate of 8 per cent over the forecast period. Raman been used for years in academia but latterly has made significant inroads into process monitoring. The technology's expected validation as a PAT technique should also be a significant factor in its growth, according to BCC.
And while the greatest use of process spectroscopy will remain in chemical and polymer manufacturing, with $50 million in sales in 2009, pharmaceutical applications will exhibit the greatest growth, with an AAGR of over 9 per cent to reach $45.5 million in 2009.
Several trends are influencing market growth and dynamics. There has been an increasing tendency on the part of ultraviolet and visible systems manufacturers to develop cheaper, more portable versions of their high-end systems in response to competition from miniature spectrometers sold into the highly fragmented UV and visible market. Development of lower-cost Raman devices is another factor. Near-infrared and Fourier transform instruments did not see significant competition from portable devices, however, and high-end systems, particularly in the near-infrared, continue to dominate many process markets.
New technologies, however, have the potential to change that situation, according to BCC. Micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technology offers the potential to make "spectrometry on a chip" become a viable option for process monitoring, if not during this forecast period, then shortly afterward. MEMS devices have already been employed in a portable NIR system.
Meanwhile, acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs), which provide rapid and repeatable wavelength selection without the use of moving parts, are being produced commercially and are employed in NIR systems that sell in the $45,000 range - considerably cheaper than most NIR monitors.
These two technological trends - increased used of MEMS and lower cost filters for NIR devices - are indicators that the process spectroscopy market 10 years from now may be significantly different from today's market, with cheaper and more portable systems operating in many manufacturing applications, says the report.
The process spectroscopy equipment industry has witnessed both greater consolidation and greater fragmentation over the past five years, with mergers and acquisitions of long-established companies occurring on the one hand, and increased participation in the market, particularly in technology development areas, from relative newcomers.
Also important to process spectroscopy instrument sales is the continued movement of manufacturing industries to offshore locations. New plants need hardware, and process spectroscopy monitors can realise increased sales in many overseas locations, according to BCC.
For the purposes of the report - entitled The Process Spectroscopy Market (RG-228R)and priced at $3950 - BCC defines the process spectroscopy market as including monitors operating in the ultraviolet and visible portions of the spectrum, dispersive NIR analysers, Fourier transform instruments operating in both the near- and NIR portions of the spectrum, Raman spectrometers, and other instruments providing spectral information that do not fall into any of these four categories.