Increasing use for air cartridges

Paul Boughton

Cartridges are finding increased use as gas turbine intake filters and also to replace tubular bags in dust collector applications.

The big growth is going to be in Asia, but there will be modest growth in Europe as well, according to a European: Air Filtration and Purification: World Markets and Fabric Filters and Elements: World Markets, published by the McIlvaine Company.

The market for cartridges, for gas turbines and dust collection has been determined for seven countries in Europe. These countries comprise 70 per cent of the GDP of Europe as follows:

France 13 per cent
Germany 18 per cent
Italy 12 per cent
Spain 7 per cent
United Kingdom 14 per cent
Czech Republic 1 per cent
Poland 4 per cent
Per centage of Total Europe 70 per cent

The analysis includes the units and the revenue per unit. The forecasts are based on the cartridge price as sold by the fabricator of the cartridge for typical orders. It is recognised that for very large orders the price may be 60 per cent of this number.

The prices are reported in various ways and vary depending on the size and media. Some cartridges are smaller than 5m2, and others are larger than 20m2. The average media content is 12m2. The media ranges from low cost cellulose to high cost PTFE. The cartridge price ranges from less than $60 to more than $200.

Average prices for each industry have been determined based on the mix of media types being used. The power industry uses few cartridges but those it does use are high priced. The stone and cement industry would use cartridges with a lower selling price.

Revenue forecasts for the seven European countries are as follows:

Cartridge Revenues Forecast for Selected European Countries,($millions at $1.20/euro):

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
90.34 93.71 97.08 100.25 104.03

The number of units consumed by these seven countries in 2007 will be:

Unit Usage Forecast for Selected European Countries: Equipment 2007

Gas Turbines 277,344
Dust Collection 877,375
Total 1,154,719

Gas turbines will be the largest single application followed by the chemical industry. A large number of small industries provide the bulk of the dust collector market.

Germany will remain the leading purchaser of dust collector cartridge units with purchases of 243,000 units in 2007.

Profiles for more than 100 companies who sell and distribute air cartridges in Europe are included in the report. They include companies which are European and US-based with Donaldson being the leading supplier.

McIlvaine Company

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