Growth Areas for Conductive Coatings

By AZoM

Table of Contents

Introduction

In the Nanomarkets report on conductive coatings, two major growth areas have been identified. The growth areas include the following:

• They include rapidly growing and highly dynamic application areas that include emerging electronics, solar panels etc. According to NanoMarkets, conductive coating companies may make considerable profits in the above sectors but the application areas are quite risky.
• Legacy applications, in which there are, still a large number of coating technologies that are not perfect yet. Some of these are electroless copper for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding coatings and indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent electrodes for displays. The risks in these applications are lesser though there may not be much chance of building a huge business.

The Solar Energy Sector

Nanomarkets expects that in the solar energy sector, there will a growing emphasis on energy conversion efficiencies as solar subsidies gradually vanish. This shift results in a requirement for high-efficiency and improved electrodes. As energy storage is gaining more significance, there are new types of supercapacitors and batteries that require better performance electrodes. This will enhance the need for conductive coatings.

The Display Industry

The display industry has begun to look out for novel opportunities outside the mainstream LCD industry. These opportunities include OLED displays, e-paper, flexible displays and transparent displays. These new displays use indium tin oxide and Nanomarkets believes that it will be the prominent transparent conductor for a very long time.

These developments in the solar panel and display industries are considerably new, it is significant to recognize that trends in the electronics and communications sectors enhance growth in the conductive coatings market.

Listed below are certain items that will counteract the core maturity in the conductive coatings space:

• The expansion of electronics, particularly of electronics that support pervasive wireless computing, is causing expansion in the market for EMI and radio frequency interference (RFI) coatings. Legacy products will continue to perform well, but novel solutions for shielding are also anticipated to expand.
• Electrostatic dissipation (ESD) and antistatic markets are gaining advantage from the trend toward pervasive electronics, and are further induced by the advancement in Moore’s Law, which makes errant charges ever more harmful in electronics manufacturing and assembly. Antistatic coatings for industrial clothing and packaging are likely to see a boom as feature sizes decrease.

New Materials Introduced as Conductive Coatings

One must note that none of the above markets will do away with old conductive materials and adopt new ones and Nanomarkets believes that any new materials will penetrate very slowly into the conductive coatings sector. Since Nanomarkets published the last report on conductive coatings, new transparent coatings like nanosilver and conductive polymers have penetrated the market and taken away a small share from ITO, which is a good sign.

• Using nanomaterials is probably the most interesting trend that NanoMarkets can see in the advanced coatings materials space. These materials are yet to be developed but have great potential. Nanomaterials do not just enhance conductive coating performance, they minimize material or manufacturing and/or materials costs, preferably both.
• Since the focus is on conductive coatings, nanometallic coatings are gaining importance. Carbon nanotube transparent conductive coatings have not done as well as expected a few years ago. The costs of CNTs are reducing rapidly and new firms are entering this market. Graphene is a favorite and Nanomarkets is not sure whether it will make a mark in the conductive coatings sector.
• Conductive polymers are used in several products as transparent conductive coatings. Conductive polymers have disadvantages such as considerably low conductivity and stability when compared conductive metal oxides and pure metals.

Conclusion

The report discussed about conductive coatings, the various application areas, present trends and new materials that may penetrate the sector.

About Nanomarkets

NanoMarkets is a leading provider of market research and industry analysis of opportunities within advanced materials and emerging energy and electronics markets. Since the firm’s founding, NanoMarkets has published over one hundred comprehensive research reports on emerging technology markets. Topics covered have included OLED displays, lighting and materials, thin-film electronics, conductive inks, transparent conductors, renewable energy, printed electronics and other promising technologies. Our client roster is a who’s who of companies in specialty chemicals, materials, electronics applications and manufacturing.

This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by NanoMarkets.

For more information on this source, please visit NanoMarkets.