Markets niche

The chemical and pharmaceutical industries use a good deal of piping, often for the transport of aggressive fluids. The design criterion in these circumstances is usually resistance to corrosion or solvation of the pipe wall. These industries will accept high materials cost, for instance stainless steel is commonly used. Plastic materials are therefore used when they have appropriate chemical resistance or perhaps temperature tolerance. Reinforced-plastic pipes in particular are also used in the chemicals sector. 

In general the so-called engineering polymers have not been exploited as pipes even though they have good mechanical properties. The reason for this is probably a combination of high price and difficulty in processing by extrusion. 

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Table 6 shows the sales estimates for principal film and sheet products for the year 1990 (14). Low density polyethylene films dominate the market in volume, followed by polystyrene and the vinyls. High density polyethylene, poly(ethylene terephthalate), and polypropylene are close in market share and complete the primary products. A number of specialty resins are used to produce 25,000—100,000 t of film or sheet, and then there are a large number of high priced, high performance materials that serve niche markets. The original clear film product, ceUophane, has faUen to about 25,000 t in the United States, with only one domestic producer. Table 7 Hsts some of the principal film and sheet material manufacturers in the United States.

As the nonwoven fabrics industry has matured and technology has become pubHcly available, emphasis in the various sectors of the industry has changed. In the 1990s, some portions of the nonwovens industry are technology driven, whereas others are market driven. A number of firms are proprietary technology based, and others are turn-key plant operations. Some corporations are commodity roU-goods producers, and others are more oriented to niche market, high value-added products. Many nonwoven produces continue the quest for new markets and more opportunities to compete with textiles, paper, and plastics. 

J. E. Sinor, "Niche Market Assessment for a SmaU Western Oil Shale Project," Final Report, DE-FC-86MC11076, U.S. Dept, of Energy, Washington, D.C., 1979. 

Thermoelectric devices represent niche markets, but as economic and environmental conditions continue to change, they appear poised to advance into more common use. Thermoelectric power generators are in use in many areas, including sateUites, deep-space probes, remote-area weather stations, undersea navigational devices, military and remote-area communications, and cathodic protection. 

Whether or not 100% on-time delivery is a requirement of your customers, you won t retain customers for long if you continually fail to meet their delivery requirements, regardless of the quality of the products you supply. It is only in a niche market that you can retain customers with a long waiting list for your products. In competitive markets you need to exceed delivery expectations as well as product quality expectations to retain your market position. 

Solar energy is used worldwide in many applications, from niche markets in developed countries to primai y village power in rural and developing communities. Its atti activeness can be attributed to several factors ... 

It is likely that the reliable crude oil supply will not diminish any time soon. Petroleum-derived fuels will remain the primary source of transportation energy for well into the twenty-first century. Producers and refiners have been, and will be, environmentally responsible. The existing infrastructure of advanced product distribution systems can compete with alternative fuels readily. Future fuels will be competitive, both economically and environmentally. New global market conditions will dictate closure of inefficient facilities and investment in new technology. Larger and more efficient operations will survive and will focus on the niche market. ... 

There are a number of major, international manufacturers of coagulant and flocculant polymers whose primary markets are high-volume users (i.e., cities, states, and national governments). There are also many smaller regional manufacturers who tend to specialize in niche markets and produce various polymer blends (organic polymers blended with various ratios of inorganic coagulants such as ACH, PAC, and alum). These polymer blends are particularly useful in industrial facilities where process contamination and difficult clarification problems may exist. 

The Schiff reaction between chitosan and aldehydes or ketones yields the corresponding aldimines and ketimines, which are converted to N-alkyl derivatives upon hydrogenation with borohydride. Chitosan acetate salt can be converted into chitin upon heating [130]. The following are important examples of modified chitosans that currently have niche markets or prominent places in advanced research. 

One of the unique issues in the development of advanced-performance materials is that they are very product-specific, and their development requires expensive prototype iteration and performance testing. The product development is people- and design-intensive and usually results in a niche market for the material that is, the specific product slate for which the material has been designed and tested. Many of the applications are in high-tech industrial products like aerospace components, so the total volume of material used will be small. Thus, attractive commercialization schemes require that the material have intrinsic value that will justify a high margin, or there must be a product application for which the value can be captured in the end product. 

Due to the low cost of thermoforming molds we can economically make short runs of specialty or niche market products, for which an injection mold would be prohibitively expensive. This is especially important for large moldings, such as whirlpool tubs and large panels for recreational vehicles, for which injection molds and presses would be astronomically expensive. 

Looking further down the food chain (or should I say up ), till just a few years ago, Power was a niche market that most engineers didn t want. Today it is a niche market that most can t do. It has turned out to be one thing to write a brilliant paper on the subject, or even put together some heady course material for, quite another to get on the bench and really build a converter that works. Remember, you also need to make it exceedingly... 

Diesel production involved a straightforward design. The olefinic distillate from olefin oligomerization was combined with the straight-run HTFT distillate and hydrotreated. The hydrotreated Fischer-Tropsch-derived distillate was blended with the distillate fraction from the natural gas liquids to produce diesel fuel. In 2003 another hydrotreater (noble metal catalyst) was added to the refinery to convert part of the hydrotreated HTFT distillate into low aromatic distillate to serve a niche market.56... 

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