This guest blog by Molly Henry of the American Filtration and Separations Society (AFS), appeared on their site (with my editorial assistance). For those who missed the original, I thought it was information worth sharing again here (in edited form) regarding the global filtration market.
As our population grows and urbanizes, so does our need for clean energy, pure water, increased food supplies, advanced medical care, and improved digital devices and processing power. Filtration and separation suppliers, as an enabling technology to most industries, must continually evolve to increase capacity and improve filtration performance. This blog examines the trends necessitating innovation.
Population growth will drive demand, which will require increased production and manufacturing efficiency for industrial products, foods and beverages, transportation, and infrastructure. All of which means a greater need for filtration and separation technology.
Rapid urbanization on a global scale requires new and improved infrastructure, including water, power, communications and transportation; all of which require filtration.
Disruptive digital technology changes have dramatically improved computer processing for several decades, and trends call for this to continue. As computer circuits have grown smaller and smaller while increasing in processing power, filtration and separation technologies have also become increasingly more sophisticated.
Natural resource scarcity and climate change will make it increasingly difficult to supply an ever-growing population with clean water. This will drive greater use of desalination technologies. Recycling and reusing of wastewater on a consumer, commercial and industrial scale will become the norm. Filtration and separation technology make all these processes possible.
Transformative advances in healthcare will allow people to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. A part of this process will be advances in diagnostic and drug therapies, which utilize filtration and separation technologies. At the same time, a focus on a cleaner environment and all natural and pure consumables, will see more industries utilizing filtration and separation rather than chemical technologies to make products safe and pure.
The race to zero emissions and zero discharge for industrial manufacturing, public utilities, automotive and aerospace will be a technology challenge on many fronts. Filtration and separation are among the major enabling technologies for this purify, recycle, and reuse process.
Whatever role you play, keeping an eye on these megatrends will serve you and your constituents well in the quest for long-term growth and value creation in the global filtration market.