Standard Work in All Colors: New Ceresana Report on Pigments

KONSTANZ, Germany - April 26, 2022 - PRLog -- Warning or camouflage? Pigments can send signals, but also protect against sunlight or other dangers. The small, color-giving particles are hardly soluble in water or other application media: pigments are mainly added to paints and coatings, plastics and construction materials. In contrast, dyes, being soluble, are used mainly to color liquids, e.g., for textiles. Worldwide demand for pigments is predicted to rise to about 13.4 million tonnes per year in 2030.

Industrial analysis of Pigment Manufacturers

By far the most important sales market for the pigments industry is the application area paints and coatings with current demand amounting to around 4.69 million tonnes per year. The area plastics comes in second place, followed by construction, printing inks, and paper. The application area interior and exterior paints in the construction industry alone accounts for around 2.3 million tonnes of pigments, followed by coatings for industrial products, an area in which pigments can be used in numerous ways: as protection from environmental influences, as decoration, but also as electrical insulation for electrical products, or as an oxygen barrier for food packaging. The demand for pigments in the different areas of application show large regional differences.

Pigments Color Plastics and Printing Inks

The largest application in the segment plastics is the area rigid and flexible packaging, with a yearly demand of around 1.3 million tonnes of pigments. Additionally, pigments are used for numerous industrial plastics products such as automotive components, as well as areas like electrical engineering and electronics, mechanical engineering, medical technology, and the agricultural industry. In the printing inks market, the largest application area is offset printing with a share of 49%. In second place comes flexo printing.

Titanium Dioxide and Iron Oxide are the Most Important Pigment Types

The best-selling pigment types are inorganic pigments, especially metallic salts. The white pigment titanium dioxide (TiO2), which is mainly used for paints and coatings, makes up for 60% of the global demand for pigments. Iron oxide pigments come in second place as the most used inorganic colored pigment. It's followed by Carbon Black, which can be used as a black pigment. Organic pigments like azo pigments or polycyclic pigments are based on carbon. In the past, they were obtained from plant or animal materials. Currently, they constitute only a small share of the worldwide pigment market: All organic pigments together amount to a market volume of less than 1 million tonnes.

Further information about the Market Study "Pigments" (7th edition): https://www.ceresana.com/en/market-studies/chemicals/pigm...