WELLESLEY, MA - Surface modification using ceramic coatings has achieved an important place in the industrial environment during the past 20 years. BCC Research reveals in its new report that high-performance ceramic coatings constitute a mature but still expanding industry with a broad list of current and potential applications, continuously emerging coating techniques and a growing list of material compositions.

Ceramic coatings constitute a large family of materials with quite diverse compositions and properties. They include compositions based on alumina, alumina-magnesia, chromia, hafnia, silica, silicon carbide, titania and zirconia. Ceramic coatings generally are applied to metal or metallic alloy components, as well as to ceramic components.

High-performance ceramic coatings are a special class of ceramics because of their form and the preparation techniques required. However, their uses are diverse, and they exploit a wide range of unique and desirable properties of various bulk ceramics. Ceramic coatings are generally used for wear-resistant (or erosion-resistant), corrosion-resistant and high-temperature-resistant applications. All ceramic coatings deliver some level of performance in each of the three major areas listed above.

The North American market for high-performance ceramic coatings totaled nearly $1.3 billion in 2015 and should reach $1.9 billion in 2020, reflecting a five-year compound annual growth rate of 7.8 percent. Thermal spray coatings, the fastest growing segment with a five-year CAGR of 8.6 percent, should grow from $695.4 million in 2015 to $1 billion in 2020. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) as a segment should grow from $260.4 million in 2015 to $377.1 million in 2020, with a five-year CAGR of 7.7 percent.

Thermal spray coatings, which captured 53.1 percent of the 2014 market, should increase its market share dominance to 55.2 percent by 2020. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) accounted for the second-largest share of the market (19.9 percent), which could decrease slightly to 19.8 percent by 2020. Meanwhile, the share of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is projected to decrease to 16.2 percent from 19.4 percent during the same period. Other coating technologies (e.g., spraying/dipping, sol-gel and micro-oxidation techniques) are predicted to gain in market share, to 8.8 percent in 2020 from 7.6 percent in 2014.

"The promise of performance improvement is the main force driving the continued development and commercialization of high-performance ceramic coatings," says BCC Research Analyst Andrew McWilliams. "These coatings are typically applied to cast iron, steel, super alloys, titanium alloys, tungsten carbides, carbon/carbon composites and even ceramics. Use of ceramic coatings enables metals to be used for several applications for which they would otherwise be unsuitable."

High-Performance Ceramic Coatings: Markets and Technologies  (AVM015H) examines the direction and impact of high-performance ceramic coating technologies, and how markets will be affected and new opportunities created. Analyses of global market drivers and trends, with data from 2014, 2015, and projections of CAGRs through 2020 also are provided.