Phase Change Materials Market Size

Phase Change Materials Market Size

Phase Change Materials Market size was valued at around USD 1.9 billion in 2019 and will exhibit a growth rate of over 17.4% from 2020 to 2026. The growth of the e-commerce industry along with increasing investments in innovative packaging trends, particularly for food materials, will augment the demand for PCM in the packaging sector throughout the assessment period. 

Phase change materials are products that store, release, and absorb heat as they oscillate between liquid and solid forms. They are also known as latent heat storage materials as they can store large amounts of thermal energy as latent heat during phase transition.

The global phase change materials (PCMs) market will be primarily driven by the escalating growth in both the construction and packaging industries. In the construction industry, PCMs are used for solar water heating, space heating/cooling, and waste heat recovery systems, among others. The growing investments in the construction industry across the globe coupled with the adoption of phase change materials in Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) applications are projected to amplify its demand throughout the forecast period. Furthermore, the packaging business is also anticipated to generate substantial revenue gains during the forecast period.
 

The growing innovations in the global PCM market share will also generate quite some revenue gains during the forecast period. With the growing advancements in encapsulation technologies, the market has witnessed various new ways of PCM incorporation in a wide range of products. Phase Change Material (PCM) encapsulation is the process of integrating PCM into end products such as building materials, textile fibers, and others. Microencapsulation and macroencapsulation are advanced methods of incorporating PCM into the final product. The growing adoption of these types of encapsulation has resulted in the widespread use of phase change materials with different melting points and in various forms from fibers to raw powder.
 

These innovative trends in the market along with the ongoing investments by proficient players are projected to open up new opportunities during the review period. Furthermore, the rising popularity of biobased phase change materials owing to their environmental and safety benefits will also propel the phase change materials market demand in the coming years.
 

Major manufacturers, such as Croda International and Laird International, produce and market phase change materials exclusively made from renewable agricultural resources and not crude oil or petroleum. Biobased PCMs have special demand from temperature-controlled packaging mainly in the pharmaceutical sector and are highly desirable by manufacturers to market their products in a packaging that will not affect the product and are bio-degradable.
 

However, the high production cost of phase change materials and volatile prices of raw materials are some of the major barriers to the phase change materials market growth. Crude oil is the major raw material and is subjected to huge volatility in prices. A slight change in the global oil scenario will directly affect the price of phase change materials, restraining the overall market.