1. Business Cost Structure of Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis
Main business costs include direct materials, direct labor, manufacturing expenses and transportation expenses. Direct material costs include materials in manufacturing and research and development, such as raw materials for membranes, bipolar membranes, electronic and electrical components, valves, meters, etc. Manufacturing expenses include depreciation and amortization and other manufacturing expenses, including installation, transportation, commissioning and maintenance of equipment.
Figure Business Cost Structure of Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis
2. Major Downstream Buyers of Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis Market Analysis
The Major Downstream Buyers of Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis are Dairy farmers of America Milk, Nestlé, Constellation Brands, Wacker Chemie AG, and Sanofi.
Table Major Downstream Buyers of Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis with Contact Information
Downstream Buyers | Contact Information |
Dairy farmers of America Milk |
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Nestlé |
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Constellation Brands |
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Wacker Chemie AG |
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Sanofi |
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3. Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis Market Drivers
‘Superior product performance’
Bipolar membrane electrodialysis plays an important role in cleaner production, environmental protection, energy conversion and composition, and is especially suitable for modern industry to save energy, reuse low-grade raw materials and eliminate environmental pollution, and has become an important part of the strategy of sustainable economic development. And because of its specific application field, and it is difficult to replace, it has great advantages in the field of zero emission and resource recovery, which has been widely concerned at present. For example, as a production equipment, specific industrial products can be prepared in a green and efficient production method (mainly for the green production of industrial acid and base); As a separation and purification equipment, the raw materials can be purified for high-quality production, and the materials can also be recycled in the production process. At the end of production, the waste water is cleaned and treated. Therefore, the superior performance of the industry can help downstream customers innovate and improve the production process, achieve circular economy, reduce waste emissions, and can be used in food, medicine, chemical and other industries of all kinds of organic matter desalination recycling and acid, alkali, salt recycling.
‘Driven by downstream demand’
Bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) can be used in food, medicine, chemical industry, recycling environment and other industries because of its superior performance. The development of the downstream industry market will promote the development of this industry. In the food industry, BMED has been applied to a certain extent in reducing the acidity of fruit juice, purifying protein, recovering amino acids and so on. Take wine production as an example, the pH value of wine has a significant impact on its sensory characteristics (freshness, aroma, flavor, etc.), BMED does not affect the characteristics of wine (sugar content, alcohol content, taste), does not add chemical additives and does not change the temperature pH regulation, can be acidified or deacidified, is a very efficient and innovative technology. Low energy and (clean) chemical consumption, in addition to showing a significant reduction in production wastewater, can limit the reduction of the environmental footprint. The advantages of BMED technology were quickly recognized by winemakers. BMED is expected to continue to grow in the wine manufacturing sector, with the increase in downstream demand being one of the main drivers of the industry’s development. In the chemical production and recycling industry, BMED has excellent application prospects in many subdivisions such as high-salt wastewater resource recovery, acid-base separation, and organic acid recovery, and is considered to be a key technology for zero liquid discharge. Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) refers to the treatment process in which the plant does not discharge liquid wastewater into surface water, effectively eliminating the environmental pollution associated with the treatment completely. With the improvement of global environmental awareness, the approaching crisis of fresh water shortage and the tightening of environmental protection policies in various countries around the world, zero liquid discharge is an important trend of global industrial wastewater recycling. This also promotes the further development of the industry. Therefore, the increase in downstream demand will become the main driving factor for the development of this industry.
4. Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis Market Restraints
‘For new entrants, there are barriers to entry’
Bipolar membrane electrodialysis industry is a technology-intensive, capital-intensive emerging industry. Materials, equipment. The research and development and production of components require a lot of investment, and its application process technology and process development require enterprises to continuously invest in research and development, so the industry has financial barriers. One of the core technologies and materials of bipolar membrane electrodialysis is the development and production of bipolar membrane. How to achieve long life, high efficiency, high stability and large-scale production is difficult. In addition, electrodialysis technology involves electricity, electrochemistry, physics, chemistry, machinery, fluid mechanics, materials and other interdisciplinary, research and development, improvement, manufacturing and other difficult, need to invest a lot of time, capital and technology. In addition, different downstream customers of the production industry, material balance, regional characteristics, industry requirements have differences, the industry enterprises according to different needs of the bipolar membrane electrodialysis process, equipment, power distribution, automatic control parameters and other customized design, which requires the enterprise industry through long-term practice and professional focus on technical research to obtain, involving a number of patented technologies, High technical barriers. Therefore, for new entrants, the entry threshold is high, which restricts the development of the industry to a certain extent. In addition, in order to occupy more market share, enterprises in the industry need to continuously invest capital, technology to improve membrane materials, equipment, research and development and expand the market, so enterprises in the industry also have the risk of technological innovation and market expansion.
5. Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis Market Opportunities
‘The tightening of environmental policies’
This industry is of great significance to achieve true zero liquid emissions, and the tightening of environmental protection policies in various countries around the world will provide great opportunities for the development of this industry. With increasing environmental awareness, environmental regulators in various countries and regions are imposing increasingly stringent policies and guidelines on industries to meet emission standards and slow down water quality deterioration to promote water conservation and reduce water pollution. Examples include the EU Water Framework Directive, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Wastewater Limitation Guidelines (ELG), the Mexican Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources’ (SEMARNAT) Wastewater Discharge Limitation Directive, and the Indian Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) regulatory directive. In addition, with the development of economy and the improvement of environmental protection awareness, less developed countries are expected to implement more perfect and strict sewage discharge policies. For example, the “Industrial Wastewater Resource Utilization Plan” issued by the Chinese government at the end of 2021 clearly states that by 2025, the reuse rate of industrial water above designated size will reach 94%, and the value of water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value will decrease by 16% by 2020. Therefore, it is expected that the future tightening of zero-emission policies in emerging countries will rapidly boost the development of the industry.
‘Expansion of application scenarios’
Bipolar membrane electrodialysis can transform the salt in the solution into the corresponding acid and base without introducing new components, which provides a new solution for the waste salt treatment problems in the new energy lithium electricity, biomedicine, chemical industry, food, metallurgy, rare earth, silicon and semiconductor industries. For example, BMED has aroused great interest in the industry in the recycling of heavy metals and key raw materials, especially BMED’s ability to recover lithium from lithium bromide waste and convert it into lithium hydroxide, which not only solves the problem of recycling waste lithium bromide, but also represents a novel lithium hydroxide production method. This is an environmentally friendly, efficient and economical lithium hydroxide preparation process. The application of BMED in auxiliary energy may be a promising alternative to the production of hydrogen from waste streams such as acid and alkali waste liquids in the metal industry. In addition, it is reported that using the BMED system with perovskite light collector, the conversion rate of solar to hydrogen is as high as 12.7%, and has good stability, it is expected that the future application of BMED in new energy cells (photovoltaic cells) will be in-depth research, may open up its new application fields. At present, the market application of this industry is still in its infancy, and the bipolar membrane dialysis technology will be gradually improved and widely used in the future, so the expansion and deep cultivation of downstream applications provide great opportunities for the development of the industry.
