Fine-Chemical Market Size

As stated in Chapter 1, fine chemicals account for only about 4-5% of the universe of chemicals. The latter, valued at 1800 billion, is dominated mainly by oil-, gas-, and mineral-derived commodities on one hand and a large variety of specialty chemicals at the interface between industry and the public on the other hand (see Table 9.1). 

All fine chemicals are used for making speciality chemicals, either by direct formulation or after chemical/biochemical transformation from intermediates to active substances. Specialty chemicals are solid (e.g., tablets) or liquid (e.g., solutions) mixtures of commodities or fine chemicals and exhibit specific properties. They are sold on the basis of what they can do (e.g., protect the skin against ultraviolet radiation), rather than on what they are (e.g., molecular structure 2-ethyl-hexylmethoxycinnamate). Within specialties, pharmaceuticals and other life science products use the largest amount of fine chemicals. They are described in detail in Sections 11.1-11.3. Uses of fine chemicals outside life sciences are discussed in Section 11.4. 

There are three main reasons why it is not possible to exactly determine the size of the fine-chemical market  

Fim Chemicals The Industry and the Business, by Peter Poliak Copyright 2007 by John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

Specialties 55% ( 990 billion) Additives and catalysts Biocides Dyestuffs and pigments Electronic chemicals Flavors and fragrances Food and feed additives Household and personal care Life science products Specialty polymers / Pharmaceuticals Veterinary drugs Agrochemicals 

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Fine chemicals form a group of products of large variety their number exceeds 10,000. The size of the global fine chemicals market in 1993 was estimated at 42,000 million. The average annual growth in the period 1989-95 was about 4.5 % (Polastro < r a/., 1990). Figure 1.1. shows the division of fine chemicals production by outlet. 

Table 9.2 Size of Fine-Chemical Markets in Developed Conntries"...

The attractiveness of specific product categories, as discussed in the previous section, by and large defines the attractiveness of target markets as well. Besides its absolute size, the pharmaceuticals market comes first, because of its inherent elevated added value, the relatively high innovation rate, which leads to a steady demand for new products and for a manageable number of customers. The attributes for the agro fine chemicals market are similar, albeit less pronounced, specialty chemicals, in contrast, are needed by almost all industries and, therefore, virtually cannot be approached proactively. Also, the innovation rate in terms of new chemical entities is generally rather low, except in the electronic industry. 

Whereas the overall demand for outsourced pharmaceutical fine chemicals is expected to increase moderately (see Chapter 15), the estimated annual growth rates for the abovementioned niche technologies are much higher. Microreactors and the SMB separation technology are expected grow at a rate of even 50-100% per year It has to be realized, however, that the size of the accessible market typically does not exceed a few hundred tons per year ... 

Food and feed additives, also known as dietary supplements, are minor ingredients added to improve the product quality. Most commonly, the effects desired relate to color, flavor, nutritive value, taste, or stability in storage. The market sizes are estimated to be 20 billion each for food and for feed additives, respectively. The major customers for the food additives are the big food companies Ajinomoto, Danone, Kraft, and Nestle, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. With the exception of Ajinomoto, these companies are rarely backward-integrated. As they prefer to use natural ingredients rather than synthetic ones, they are not very important customers of the fine-chemical industry. Premixers, that is, enterprises that prepare ready-to-use mixtures of nutrients for the farmers who raise cattle, pigs, and chicken, are the main users of feed additives. 

Chemical Modification of Alumina The commercial grade alumina (AD-101) produced by Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited, CATAD Division, Bombay is used as the starting alumina in the present study. This alumina is treated with mild alkali(NaOH) and with mild acid (HCl). About 25 gms of AD-101 is exactlty weighed and taken in a round bottomed flask and to it requisite concentration of NaOH/HCl is added and heated at required temperature for 4-15 hrs. After treatment it is thoroughly washed with double distilled water to remove excess of acid / alkali by monitoring the pH of the extract. A commercial alumina adsorbent available in the market which is specifically used for removal of tert-butyl catechol from styrene is used as a reference. The commercial sample was in the form of a finely divided powder (<120 mesh size) with a water adsorption capacity of 13% at 60% RH. 

For products of 2 gm and below, various precipitation processes have always been preferred by the key end market - cable sheathing. In cable sheathing based on various rubbers and/or polyethylene copolymers, a small particle size ATH is required in order to give maximum tensile strength. The major developments over recent years have been improvements in the chemical purity, particularly soluble ionic surface impurities such as sodium, and improvements in the bulk handleability of such fine powders (flowability etc.). 

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