A new report from NanoMarkets,
a leading industry analyst firm that tracks and analyzes emerging market opportunities
in energy and electronics markets, predicts that new opportunities are rapidly
emerging in the conductive coatings market as the result of new applications
and novel materials. Once a highly mature sector centered on coating or plating
metals for equally slow-growing applications, the conductive coatings market
will see a growth spurt brought on by demanding new requirements for electrodes,
EMI/RFI shielding, and antistatic protection from next-generation electronics
and energy devices. At the same time, new materials ranging from carbon nanotubes
to conductive polymers to advanced composites, will provide significant competition
to traditional metal coatings on cost, environmental and performance grounds.
NanoMarkets' projections place the conductive coatings markets at $12.2 billion
in 2014 going on to reach $15.9 billion in 2016 for the critical applications
covered in electronics discussed in the report. Further details about the report
are available at www.nanomarkets.net.
Key findings:
- Electrode coatings with enhanced conductivity will prove a key enabling
technology in emerging areas such as large area sensors, fuel cells and especially
photovoltaics (PV). NanoMarkets believes that advanced materials -- such as
mixtures of silver and transparent conducting oxides -- could provide a way
forward to higher efficiencies in solar panels. Conductive coatings sold into
the photovoltaics sector will reach $1.6 billion in revenues by 2014.
- Because nanomaterials are at an early stage they offer the best prospects
for a leap forward in conductive coating technology. Carbon nanotube coatings
are already being used to beef up performance in fuel cells, lighting and
displays and NanoMarkets also sees a significant market developing for nanosilver
pastes for sensors, certain kinds of capacitors and EMI/RFI shielding. While
nanomaterials used in the conductive coatings sector today are negligible,
by 2014, nanomaterials-based conductive coatings are expected to reach $415
million in revenues.
- Also by 2014, more than $450 million in conductive coatings will be sold
for antistatic protection and EMI/RFI shielding applications. Growth in this
market will be spurred by growth of wireless communications with its inherent
need for shielding and higher levels of chip integration which will require
more protection from static electricity. NanoMarkets also expects new uses
to emerge in this sector such as RF shielding used to prevent access to data
stored on RFID chips. It also anticipates that there will be a growing shift
from metallic coatings towards the use of conductive polymers for EMI/RFI
shielding on cost and environmental grounds.
About the report:
NanoMarkets' report, "Conductive Coatings Markets, 2009 and Beyond --
Item Number: Nano-078" analyzes and quantifies the opportunities for conductive
coatings based on metals, metallic compounds, conductive polymers and advanced
materials such as carbon nanotubes in important applications such as batteries
and fuel cells, photovoltaics, displays and lighting, sensors, antistatic/ESD
applications, and EMI/RFI shielding. It contains detailed eight-year revenue
forecasts for these materials, broken out by material type and applications.
It also contains discussions of the latest technological developments in both
commercial and industrial labs as well as discussions of innovations by major
materials companies and start-ups.