The Air Pollution Monitoring & Sampling World Markets report from The McIlvaine Company states that this comprises the market for stack continuous emissions monitors (CEMS) at just under US$1 billion and ambient continuous emissions monitoring plus stack testing at US$1.5 billion
East Asia will be the biggest market for stack CEMS due to the large number of new coal-fired boilers, cement plants, incinerators and other industrial plants which are under construction. This region will also account for the majority of the new ambient monitoring systems. Many developing countries are prioritising investments to measure the levels of air pollution.
Meanwhile, the US market is being boosted by new air toxic regulations affecting utility coal-fired boilers, cement plants and industrial boilers. Dedicated CEMS will be required to measure hydrogen chloride, mass particulate and mercury. An alternative to measuring total particulate will be the measurement of a number of individual toxic metals.
The stack testing market is still centred in the developing countries and investment in periodic calibration of CEMS systems is growing substantially as new CEM types are incorporated. Testing for mercury is a complex task, and as a result only a few companies are able to offer this service.
There is a rapidly growing market at the interface between emission and process monitoring. The stringency of regulations dictate that the processes operate within the emission limits, thus CEMS become a critical tool in adjusting operations to insure compliance. Equally important are the use of CEMS to optimise the expenditures for chemicals. Expensive sorbents such as activated carbon and other chemicals such as ammonia need to be injected. CEMS at the inlet and outlet of air pollution control equipment can be used to fine tune the chemical additions and save considerable costs for excess chemicals.