Hydrogel Markets in Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Electronics, Electrical, Consumer 2022-2042

The awesome hydrogel is a three-dimensional 3D network of hydrophilic polymers like a giant molecule that can swell in water and hold at least 10% of water while maintaining well-defined structure. A vast number of variants can be tailored to a vast variety of needs. Alternative terms are crosslinked hydrophilic polymer CHP and super absorbent polymer SAP though the more pedantic scholars argue that these terms even embrace forms unable to hold as much as 10% water.

 

Mainstream hydrogels absorb up to 1,000 times their weight in water, releasing it in a controlled way, yet barely dissolving in water. They can grab and transport other elements and molecules. Some are hard as glass only when you jump on them, others have shape memory. The magical properties and applications of hydrogels depend on formula, crosslinking agent, synthesis route and bonding chosen.

 

Medical hydrogels have a great future but the rest will become a much larger business. Time for a study of the rest! On cue, the IDTechEx report, "Hydrogel Markets in Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Electronics, Electrical, Consumer 2022-2042" does just that. Researched by PhD level, multilingual IDTechEx analysts across the world, it finds that all major applicational sectors of hydrogels are growing but only some are gaining market share.

 

 

Its detailed study of the 2021/2 research pipeline shows how the impact can only be understood with a 20-year view so that is provided, expressed in new infograms, roadmaps and forecasts. Understand the demand side such as wearable technology needing stretchable hydrogel components. Will photovoltaics follow the sun and keep cool with nothing more than hydrogel overlayers? Will they reverse desertification? The approach is balanced, facing head-on the problems of toxicity of some hydrogels, recognising strongly competing materials for many needs such as anti-fouling paint, capturing precious metals from dirty water and clean water from the air. Newly trending common themes such as self-healing and membranes are well examined.

 

Chapter 1 Executive Summary and Conclusions at 61 pages is thorough but easily absorbed for those with limited time. Here you see definitions, chemistries, possibilities and applicational sectors described, companies involved. Examine SWOT assessments, patent trends, leading patentors and many 20-year forecasts and roadmap items done early 2022 and updated thereafter. No equations. Just how to create a $1 billion business over the coming 20 years and benefit society in the most vibrant hydrogel sectors and research topics identified.

 

The Introduction (43 pages) opens up issues from the food, water and energy crisis to personal care that are being tackled with hydrogels in research or commercially. Understand how future indoor and micro-farming and meat and milk grown from cells do not necessarily need hydrogels but where they are proposed. See the hydrogel technology choices compared and understand how they are the gymnasts of chemicals with so much more to come.

 

Chapter 3 (25 pages) appraises research to achievement in the linked topics of hydrogels for agriculture, veterinary materials, securing fire-risk landscapes. Water treatment and capture are close to all this so they are the subject of Chapter 4 which also embraces obtaining precious metals from water commercially. Because the water industry aspect turns out to be of huge potential, 43 packed pages explain the technologies, needs and approaches that will make this happen.

 

Chemical engineering and construction applications involve hydrogels but concrete, for example, may be made by creating the hydrogel in situ so the opportunities for supplying hydrogels are more limited. Chapter 5 takes 25 pages to explain construction hydrogel opportunities including concrete, sealant and marine anti-fouling hydrogels.

 

Energy, electronics, electrical engineering and soft-robotics turned out to be very active with robust research on such things as hydrogels in sensors, batteries, supercapacitors, electronic components and soft robotics. IDTechEx found limited current sales but considerable potential. Chapter 6 therefore uses 45 pages to report latest news, consolidate, criticise and predict this.

 

Chapter 7 on personal care and fast-moving consumer goods hydrogels includes pads, creams and diapers many suffering commoditisation and with limited research and patenting of better things so 16 pages suffice. Nonetheless, several promising new inventions are revealed.

 

By contrast, the research surfaces huge work on two topics applicable across many sectors and hydrogel technologies. Chapter 8 (22 pages) is a thorough look at self-healing hydrogels in context for everything for flexible electronics and energy storage to veterinary, water filtration, energy and other uses. Chapter 9 ends the report with the importance of hydrogel membranes for extracting uranium from water, constructing many types of sensor, membranes for supercapacitors and batteries, fuel cell ion exchange interfaces, microfluidics and more.

 

No, hydrogels do not stop at glamorous medical procedures and keeping your plants wet. Careful study of the rest can lead you to bigger opportunities, sometimes with fewer emerging competitors and better leveraging your existing skills. Only this up-to-date report has that big picture beyond medical. In a gold rush, get there first and sell shovels.

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