KONSTANZ, Germany — Ceresana recently announced that it has analyzed the world market for pigments for the seventh time. According to the company, worldwide demand for pigments is predicted to rise to about 13.4 million tonnes per year in 2030. The researchers expect the highest growth in the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions.

According to the report, the most important sales market for the pigments industry is the paint and coatings sector, with current demand amounting to around 4.69 million tonnes per year. After the paint and coatings sector, the plastics industry is second in terms of sales, followed by the construction, printing inks, and paper industries. Interior and exterior paints in the construction industry alone accounts for around 2.3 million tonnes of pigments, followed by coatings for industrial products, an area in which pigments can be used in numerous ways: as protection from environmental influences, as decoration, but also as electrical insulation for electrical products, or as an oxygen barrier for food packaging. Ceresana has analyzed the sales markets for paints and coatings, plastics, and printing inks along with their respective submarkets in detail.

The largest application in the plastics segment is the rigid and flexible packaging area, with a yearly demand of around 1.3 million tonnes of pigments. Additionally, pigments are used for numerous industrial plastics products such as automotive components, as well as areas like electrical engineering and electronics, mechanical engineering, medical technology, and the agricultural industry. In the printing inks market, the largest application area is offset printing with a share of 49%. In second place is flexo printing, a process used mainly for flexible packaging, pulp and nonwovens, and labels as well as corrugated board, cardboard, and films.

The best-selling pigment types are inorganic pigments, especially metallic salts. The white pigment titanium dioxide (TiO₂), which is reportedly mainly used for paints and coatings, makes up for 60% of the global demand for pigments. Iron oxide pigments come in second place as the most used inorganic colored pigment. It is followed by carbon black. This coloring carbon (known as lamp black) is mainly used in printing inks varnishes and other inks, but can also function as UV-protection for plastics. Organic pigments like azo pigments or polycyclic pigments are based on carbon. In the past, they were obtained from plant or animal materials. Currently, they constitute only a small share of the worldwide pigment market: All organic pigments together amount to a market volume of less than one million tonnes.

For more information about Ceresana, visit www.ceresana.com.