Cleantech sector offers big potential for nanomaterials

A new report today from Lux Research indicates the market for products, which use nanotechnology to improve end technologies, is expected to grow from $29 billion in 2009 to $498 billion in 2015.

Enabled by nanomaterials, these intermediate products, which aren't raw materials and aren't end goods, are referred to as nanointermediates. They range from coatings and fabrics to display components.

But the report cautions that, as select companies participate in the projected growth, other firms are likely to disappear.

"Nanointermediates generate almost twice the net profit margin of other products along nanotech's value chain, including nanomaterials and nano-enabled end products," said Jurron Bradley, a Lux Research senior analyst and the report's lead author, in a news release. "But each category of nanointermediate—catalysts, coatings and composites—includes both entrenched dominant players as well as long-shot companies that may soon find themselves pushed to the brink by the global recession."

The report indicates that in the cleantech sector, energy and environmental applications offer a large opportunity for nanointermediates (see Report quantifies impact of nanotechnology in sustainable energy).

Lux Research said that nanointermediates took 30 percent of the $2.5 billion that national governments invested in nanotech last year for renewable energy. Also in 2008, nanointermediates represented almost half of the $1.2 billion in nanotech venture capital funding.

The report says the highest growth companies are developing nanointermediates for energy storage and solar cells (see Nanotechnology reduces carbon, says report).

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