Research Articles

With so many PFAS in use worldwide, it is unsurprising that PFAS contamination has become a global issue impacting human and environmental health. Extensive remediation efforts will need to be conducted to deal with such widespread PFAS contamination, which will cost a significant amount of money. IDTechEx estimates that global expenditure on PFAS treatment for municipal drinking water alone will reach US$2.3 billion in 2035.

Concerns over incumbent strategies for PFAS waste management have created opportunities for novel PFAS destruction technologies to potentially disrupt the status quo. Universities and independent start-ups are developing numerous different destruction technologies.

The growing awareness of the negative effects of chemicals and materials we've built our modern society on has led governments, companies, academics, and consumers alike to search for alternatives. This will no doubt be a monumental task. In many places, there are no suitable replacements. Still, significant activity is taking place worldwide, which IDTechEx has followed in our research, to push different sectors to identify chemicals and materials for a less contaminated, more circular world.

With so many PFAS and just as many applications for them, why are PFAS now coming under increased scrutiny? Scientific evidence is growing that, depending on different factors, continued exposure to specific PFAS may lead to negative health effects, such as increased risk of cancer, per the US EPA and the OECD.

La création d'une économie circulaire est un objectif de durabilité essentiel pour de nombreuses parties prenantes de la chaîne d'approvisionnement : gouvernements, marques, fournisseurs et consommateurs. La réduction des déchets plastiques est un élément clé de cette démarche ; l'OCDE a estimé que plus de 350 millions de tonnes métriques de déchets plastiques ont été générées dans le monde en 2019. Pour s'attaquer à la production de déchets plastiques, il faut des solutions dans tous les secteurs, en particulier celui de l'emballage plastique, qui utilise environ un tiers de la production annuelle de plastique. Les emballages plastiques à usage unique, qu'il s'agisse de films étirables, de sacs souples pour croustilles ou de contenants pour plats à emporter, sont générés en très grandes quantités mais finissent rapidement dans les flux de déchets municipaux.

The global plastics industry converged in Orlando, Florida, in the first week of May for NPE 2024, the first edition of the largest plastics trade show in the Americas in six years. With over 50,000 attendees and 2,000 exhibitors, many sectors and types of companies were represented, from plastic resin manufacturers to injection molding equipment suppliers to plastics distributors and much more.

Future connected vehicles will offer future drivers a safer, smoother, and more convenient driving experience. Not only will drivers get access to more navigation and entertainment options, but they will also gain access to safety technologies that will potentially reduce accidents, improve congestion, and reduce emissions globally by allowing vehicle safety systems to communicate with each other and with city traffic infrastructure.

The signing of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in 2001 marked a historic moment, as it was the first global treaty aimed at eliminating or restricting chemicals harmful to human and environmental health. The addition of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) to the Convention in 2009 marked yet another milestone, as PFOS and its related substances became the first of the PFAS family to be regulated on an international level

"Forever chemicals", or PFAS, are coming under increasing regulatory pressure globally as concerns over the negative effects of PFAS on human health and the environment are mounting. In their brand new report, "Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) 2024: Emerging Applications, Alternatives, Regulations", IDTechEx dives deeply to explore the future trajectory of PFAS in five key emerging applications: thermal management for data centers, sustainable food packaging, electric vehicles, low-loss materials for 5G, and the hydrogen economy.

Le marché des véhicules électriques (VE) a connu une nouvelle année de croissance passionnante en 2023. Après une augmentation de 62 % des ventes de voitures électriques en 2022 par rapport à 2021, IDTechEx prévoit une augmentation de 16 % des ventes mondiales pour 2023. Cependant, la croissance a été quelque peu limitée au cours de l'année en raison de la performance des véhicules hybrides rechargeables (PHEV) en Europe, en particulier au cours du premier semestre 2023, en partie attribuée à des réductions de subventions en Allemagne. Néanmoins, beaucoup s'accordent à dire que les VE représentent l'avenir de l'industrie automobile, en particulier pour les voitures particulières.

As the world awaits the full take-off of the next generation of telecommunication technologies, 5G, important stakeholders are preparing for the future of future telecommunications - 6G. This may seem premature, given that deployment of 5G infrastructure and base stations are not nearly at their peak yet.

Ten years ago, the 3D printing landscape was in the midst of its first big boom. With the 2009 expiration of a key Stratasys patent that covered thermoplastic filament extrusion technology, desktop filament printers were taking off, buoyed by new disrupters like Makerbot.

Appareils intelligents, conduite autonome, surveillance à distance des patients - d'innombrables nouvelles applications sont rendues possibles par les progrès de la technologie des télécommunications, et plus particulièrement par le passage à la 5G.

The 3D printing industry is by no means new, given the invention of the first 3D printing technologies in the 1980s; yet, in an industry with a long history of twists and turns, 2024 is looking to be the most consequential yet for additive manufacturing. This can be traced back to the shockwaves set off by COVID-19. While the pandemic initially lowered sales for many 3D printer manufacturers, it also created opportunities for additive manufacturing to showcase its unique strengths, as numerous companies looked to reshoring and strengthening their supply chain to avoid persistent disruptions amidst global shipping shortages.

Creating a circular economy is an essential sustainability target for governments, brands, materials suppliers, and the public. Key to pushing these sustainability efforts, which range from sustainability roadmaps developed by chemical and material companies to sustainable material usage targets adopted by brands, is the danger that growing global plastic consumption poses to the environment.

In the color spectrum of biotechnology, white biotechnology stands out as the industrial production and processing of chemicals, materials, and energy via cell factories like bacteria and yeast. In the bioeconomy, in which society uses renewable biological resources to create biobased products, white biotechnology acts as a critical technology driver. It not only reduces society's dependence on fossil fuels but also consumes less energy, generates minimal waste, and produces more environmentally friendly products.

If biotechnology was a color spectrum, where different colors correspond to different application areas (i.e. medicine, agriculture, etc.), then what is white biotechnology? White biotechnology is the industrial production and processing of chemicals, materials, and energy using micro-organisms like bacteria and yeast.

The advancement of biotechnology is critical to expanding both the bioeconomy, where society uses renewable biological resources to create biobased products and the circular economy. Of the numerous colors of the biotechnology spectrum, in which different colors refer to different applications for biotechnology, white biotechnology stands out as a key technology enabler for the bioeconomy by advancing the industrial production of biobased products through biological systems.

A historic moment was marked in 2023 in Paris, France, as United Nations delegates from 180 countries convened to discuss a treaty to end global plastic pollution. In early June 2023, it was announced that these delegates had taken the first step towards a legally binding treaty to regulate plastics that could come into effect by 2025.

In the past decade or so, the additive manufacturing industry has been characterized by an ever-increasing number of hardware players trying to capture their own share of the market. While there were signs of consolidation in the early 2010s, given major moves by industry leaders like Stratasys and 3D Systems, AM has instead seen a consistent stream of newcomers with their own innovative takes on AM, such that IDTechEx now segments their 3D printing hardware forecast by seventeen different categories to account for such diversity.

RAPID + TCT is one of North America's biggest trade shows and conferences for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry. This year, IDTechEx attended and spoke at the show; they interviewed prominent players and observed industry trends.

The need for a circular economy has never been so urgent. Plastic consumption is expected to double globally by 2050, creating environmental and human health risks. Not only is plastic waste overflowing in landfills, but a significant portion is mismanaged and leaks into the environment: the OECD estimates that nearly 80 million tonnes of plastic waste was mismanaged globally in 2019.

La législation limitant l'utilisation des "produits chimiques à vie", ou des substances per- et polyfluoroalkyles (PFAS), fait l'objet d'un débat sur les principaux marchés tels que l'Union européenne et les États-Unis. Mais comme certains membres de la famille des PFAS, à savoir les fluoropolymères comme le polytétrafluoroéthylène (PTFE), sont envisagés pour les applications de la prochaine génération de la 5G, comment cela affectera-t-il le marché des matériaux à faible perte pour la 5G ?

Creating a circular economy is an essential sustainability target for governments, brands, suppliers, and the public. A key driver is the risks that plastic consumption, which is expected to double globally by 2050, poses to the environment.

When thinking of the applications of low-loss materials in 5G devices, the first that comes to mind for most is 5G smartphones. After all, low-loss materials are integral in enabling advanced 5G antennas-in-packages (AiP) for smartphones, and high-profile smartphone manufacturers like Apple have gone back and forth about which low-loss material they chose for their 5G antennas in their flagship phones like the iPhone.

The next generation of telecoms technologies, 5G, is not fully deployed yet; in fact, the exciting high-frequency bands of mmWave 5G are not set to take off for another several years, according to IDTechEx forecasts.

Essential to understanding the evolution of the polymer 3D printing industry is exploring the change from low-cost printing technologies and materials to the slow growth and adoption of innovative polymer printing technologies and materials, from viscous thermosets to carbon fiber composites to foams.

"Diverse and Developing" - the only way to describe the current breadth of the polymer materials portfolio for additive manufacturing. From materials that vary in form factor (i.e., powders, resins, filaments) to material properties (i.e., flexible, reinforced, tough, etc.) to application (i.e., medical, industrial, dental, etc.), it can be difficult to define suitable enough categories that adequately cover this diverse market.

Each year, the global deployment of 5G-enabled devices and infrastructure expands, with 98 nations having commercialized 5G or conducting 5G trials in 2022, up from 79 nations in 2021.

With so much focus being put on 3D printers, it can be easy to lose sight of the many other important sectors that make 3D printing, especially industrial additive manufacturing, possible. It takes an entire ecosystem, including materials, software, post-processing, quality assurance, services, specialized training, and more, for 3D printing to be utilized in high-value industries and applications

IDTechEx finds that demand for polymer materials by mass far exceeds that of metal materials for 3D printing. IDTechEx finds that polymer 3D printing is moving beyond prototyping to high-value adoption by end-users, which will propel its growth to US$21.1 billion in 2033.

Despite the obstacles posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent supply chain disruptions, the additive manufacturing market continues to find new applications and end-users. IDTechEx forecasts that 3D printing's continued innovation and meaningful adoption will lead the hardware and consumables market to surpass US$41 billion by 2033.

Open vs closed materials systems: In this article, IDTechEx Technology Analyst Sona Dadhania discusses how the dichotomy between "open" materials systems and "closed" materials systems (also known as platforms or architectures) affects the growth and utilization of materials for additive manufacturing.

The growth potential for AM materials differs from printing equipment, as operational legacy printers continue to consume materials. Therefore, this segment of the 3D printing value chain represents a tremendous opportunity.

Perfectly imperfect - that is the technology landscape in metal 3D printing boiled down. Through an extensive benchmarking study, IDTechEx has asked the question: where are metal additive manufacturing technologies going, and where are the whitespaces for advancement in the metal AM landscape?

Since 3D Systems commercialized stereolithography 30 years ago, 3D printer manufacturers who invented their own proprietary technology predominantly followed the same business strategy: selling their printers to customers. Until recently, it was the norm for established and rising 3D printing players, both in metal and polymer additive manufacturing, to follow the same path.