UV curing to propel UV LED market in 2019

UV LED technology will find growth opportunities in disinfection and purification, and new applications by 2017-2018, according to the latest report from Yole Developpement. As a result of its compactness and low cost of ownership, UV LED technology continues to make its way in the booming UV curing business, through replacement of incumbent technologies such as mercury lamps, added the market research firm.

"Thanks to this an overall UV LED market that represented only about $20 million in 2008 grew to nearly $90 million in 2014, at a compound annual growth rate of 28.5 per cent," said Pars Mukish, business unit manager, LED activities at Yole. Such growth is likely to continue as LED-powered UV curing spreads across ink, adhesive and coating industries. Mukish added: "By 2017-2018, the UV LED market should also see part of its revenues coming from UVC disinfection and purification applications, for which device performance is not yet sufficient. The UV LED business is therefore expected to grow from about $90M in 2014 to about $520M in 2019." This market's evaluation takes into account only standard applications, where UV LEDs replace UV lamps.

Mukish indicated: "The potential is even greater, if we consider UV LEDs' ability to enable new concepts in areas like general lighting, horticultural lighting, biomedical devices and in fighting hospital-acquired infections (HAIs)." Even this is just scratching the surface of UV LEDs' real potential. While the new applications do not yet have a strong impact on market size, Yole expects them to possibly count for nearly 10 per cent of the total UV LED market size by 2019.