NEWS RELEASE                                                                                                                OCTOBER 2012

World Market for Dust Collector Bags to Exceed $2.7 Billion Next Year

Operators of dust collectors will spend $2.7 billion for bags and cartridges in 2013. Industries in East Asia will account for 44 percent of the total. This is the latest finding in World Fabric Filter and Element Market published by the McIlvaine Company.

Top of F($ Millions)

Bottom of

  
  

World Region

  		  

2013

  

Africa

 67  

CIS

 91

East Asia

 1,233  

Eastern Europe

 63

Middle East

 91

NAFTA

 448  

South & Central America

 171  

West Asia

 182  

Western Europe

 361  

Total

2,707

China will be a major purchaser of bags due to its large cement production. Cement plants are presently the largest users of bags. This is likely to change over the next few years as power plants switch from electrostatic precipitation to fabric filtration. Presently less than five percent of the coal-fired power plants in the world utilize fabric filters.

New power plant regulations in the U.S. will force many operators to switch to fabric filters to obtain the very low emission levels dictated by regulations to reduce air toxics such as cadmium and lead.

There are a number of developing technologies which will also impact the market. The trend toward cartridges instead of tubular bags will accelerate. The development of nano fibers will increasingly result in higher efficiencies for a given energy input. The use of membrane composites (membrane film on a non-woven substrate) will increase due to efficiency and cake release benefits.

The biggest potential change could come from the development of ceramic filter media which will allow dust separation at temperatures of 850oF. The typical power plant uses an inefficient rotary heat exchanger in the dirty gas stream due to the lack of an option to reliably remove the dust at this high temperature. The ceramic filter will allow much more efficient heat exchange. Several companies are now offering ceramic filter media. Clear Edge has taken this development a step further with the introduction of a ceramic filter with imbedded catalyst to both remove dust and reduce NOx. This combination device promises to substantially change the approach to air pollution control in power plants.

For more information on World Fabric Filter and Element Market, click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/air.html#n021