UV Stabilizers Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Widespread adoption in packaging: UV radiation affects the packaging and products, especially electronics, cosmetics, and textiles. UV additives protect the other packaging from visible effects such as color changes and cracks and color changes, and block the release of dicarboxylic acids that can degrade the products. The growth in packaging industry is fueling the use of UV additives and stabilizers.

Global e-commerce plastic packaging market by product type, 2022

UV stabilizers are pivotal in the food packaging sector. A significant portion of food is lost in the supply chain as a result of environmental factors, comprising radiation and thermal degradation, moisture, oxidation, and microbial contamination. Approximately, 30% of the global food production is wasted in the supply chain and more than 2 million tons of vegetable and fruit waste will be generated each year by 2030, says the NCBI. Barrier property of food packaging with a capacity to block 200-400 nm UV and 400-700 nm visible radiation. The exposure of food products to natural or artificial UV light throughout harvesting, storage, distribution, procurement, sales, and consumption induces photo-degradation and photo-oxidation, thereby, adversely impacting food quality and nutritional value. 

• Growing demand in the automotive sector: Automobiles are a key end user of UV additives to improve the durability of paint & coatings and other vehicle parts. The massive rise in automotive sales has driven the UV stabilizers market adoption. The U.S.       light trucks (CUVs, SUVs, vans, pickups) market share surged 3.4% to reach 79.3% in 2022, while cars accounted for 20.7%. Auto manufacturing contributes USD 1 trillion to the economy annually in the form of sales and servicing. Roughly, USD 280 billion is collected as  state, local, and federal tax revenues, including USD 79 billion in state and USD 69 billion in federal income.  

Challenges

• Fluctuations in the prices of raw materials: Raw materials such as aluminum chloride, benzene, sodium nitrite, benzoyl chloride, and others are used to produce UV stabilizers. The prices of these raw materials fluctuate regularly, owing to this attribute the prices of UV stabilizers also fluctuate and this affects the market growth further. The prices of UV stabilizer raw materials are - benzene for USD 696.7 per MT, sodium nitrite for USD 40 for 1kg, and benzoyl chloride for USD 38 for 1000g.