Suppliers of scrubbers, absorbers, adsorbers and biofilters will generate revenues of $7.5 billion in 2017.
This is the latest forecast in Scrubber/Adsorber/Biofilter World Markets from the McIlvaine Company.
The largest investment will be for wet and dry scrubbers to capture the emissions from incinerators. This includes those which burn hazardous waste, garbage and commercial and industrial waste. Municipal wastewater plants purchase scrubbers and biofilters to remove the odours and to capture sewage sludge incinerator emissions.
There are many different applications where scrubbers are used to capture particulate, acid gases and odours. One of the biggest short-term potential segments is the capture of SO2 from the stacks of ships. Many large vessels use high sulphur bunker fuel. New regulations will prohibit these ships from entering ports without being equipped with systems to capture the acid gases.
Another big potential is to remove HCl from industrial boiler exhausts. The U.S. has promulgated regulations limiting these emissions. The forecasts do not include the scrubbers used for SO2 removal at large coal-fired utilities. The reason is that the utility market is as large as all the industrial applications combined. It is, therefore, analysed separately.
Lime and sodium compounds are typically used to neutralise and capture acid gases. Suppliers of these reagents are among the biggest beneficiaries of the expanding market. Suppliers of polymers and other water treatment chemicals are benefiting from the wastewater treatment needs. Scrubbers are also used to capture mercury using bromine compounds. This benefits Chemtura and other worldwide suppliers.
