Increased demand in the domestic market, rising prospects for water purifiers

Introduction: Aimed at the problems of water purifiers in the Chinese market: capacity, purchase time, mainstream brands and market share, instrument types, application fields, water sources and usage, instrument performance quality, price level and after-sales service satisfaction, etc. People participated in the questionnaire survey (online questionnaires and telephone surveys).

The 2026 participating investigators were from factories and mines (25.81% of the total), research institutes (including colleges and universities) (39.29%), test institutions (19.64%), hospitals (1.28%) and others (13.97%). concerned department.

Laboratory water purifiers used for the purification of water sources should be considered as one of the indispensable general-purpose instruments for scientific research and various application laboratories. A wide range of application areas means huge market capacity. For the one-year total sales of the Chinese market (see Figure 1), more than 30% of the people have chosen more than 5,000 units, and about two people have selected 1000-3000 units and 3000- 5000 units, and nearly 30% of the people chose not to speak. The survey results show that the general public is generally optimistic about the sales of water purifiers.

A survey of the timing of the purchase of water purifiers showed that water purifiers purchased before 2000 accounted for 18% of the total number of surveys, purchases for 2000-2003 accounted for 36% (average 12.3% per year), and purchase rates for 2004-2005 accounted for 30%. %, and the purchasing rate reached 16% in the first half of 2006. From the above data, it can be seen that the water purifier as a laboratory general-purpose instrument, the purchasing rate in the last two years has reached 50% of the total, and the market demand and purchase rate have kept rising year by year.

As a general-purpose instrument, there are many manufacturers of water purifiers. The water purifier industry leader Millipore has maintained a leading position in the survey. More than 30% of the respondents stated that they use Millipore products. It is reported that Millipore’s brand share in the Chinese market reached a decade ago. 90%. Shanghai Utop (Chengdu Ultra Pure), German Membrane, American Pall, American Barnstead, Shanghai Hetai and other brands accounted for 5%-10% of the total share in the survey. Beijing Liyuan Electronics, South Korea NewHuman, Shanghai Moller (Chongqing Moore), Hangzhou Yongjieda, Shanghai Baoer, Taiwan Ai Kepu, ELGA, Shanghai Pigeon, Taiwan Ecoco (Chengdu Downs Corning) in the survey Shares of less than 5% respectively. About 10% of the users chose the others: Sartorius, SG Germany, Beijing East West Electronics, Beijing Ying An Meicheng, Beijing Zhongke Zhiheng, Jena Germany, the United States Ashura, Ovies and other brands. It seems that domestic water purifier users have been blindly pursuing imported instruments from the past, and they have gradually shifted to meet the requirements for use as the main selection factor, and domestic and imported brands have jointly considered the stage.

The results of the investigation of water purifier applications showed that university research institutes ranked first, 34% of respondents said that they were used in the field, and quality inspection systems accounted for 22%; chemical industry and environmental monitoring water purifiers The application is also very wide, but also accounts for about 15% of the proportion; bio-medicine and medical disease control each account for about 7% of the total; followed by steel and metallurgy, animal husbandry, animal inspection and quarantine, mineral geology in three areas, each accounting for about 3%; there are about 8.21% of respondents said that water purifiers are used in other fields. Water purification methods can be divided into: distillation, ion exchange, activated carbon adsorption, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ultraviolet irradiation, electrodialysis (EDI) and reverse osmosis (RO). Ion exchange method is to filter raw water with a spherical resin (ion exchange resin). The ions in the water exchange with the ions fixed on the resin. The two common ion exchange methods are hard water softening and deionization. Hard water softening is a pre-treatment procedure that reduces the hardness of the water prior to reverse osmosis (RO) treatment. The activated carbon adsorption method utilizes the pore size of the activated carbon filter and the penetration of organic matter through the pores to remove non-ionic organic substances. Generally, the activated carbon filter is installed before the ion exchange resin.

The microfiltration method is generally placed at the final point of use in the purification system to remove the last remaining traces of resin fragments, carbon debris, colloidal particles, and microorganisms. Reverse osmosis (RO) is the most economical method to achieve 90% to 99% impurity removal and is commonly used to filter contaminants less than 1 nm in diameter. In the water quality monitoring of pure water, the key indicators are: conductivity/resistivity κ, total organic carbon level, pH value, heat source level, and microbial content.

When investigating the types of water purifiers, the water purifiers were classified into the following types based on their technical specifications and application fields: conventional physicochemical analysis, applicable to routine chemical analysis, qualitative analysis, buffer solution preparation, etc.; Low TOC type, ultra-low organics, suitable for high performance liquid chromatography, ion chromatography, gas chromatography, GC/MS, total organic carbon (TOC) analysis, organic analysis, capillary electrophoresis, microelectronics processing, toxicology research, environmental protection experiments Analytical, etc.; removal of heat sources, removal of heat (endotoxins) for liquid/gas chromatography, amino acid analysis, protein purification, electrophoresis/gel analysis, toxicological studies, animal and plant cell culture, tissue culture, test tube baby, molecular Biological experiments and other projects; both ultra-low TOC and heat-removal type, both organic and endotoxin-free, suitable for microbial medium configuration, environmental analysis experiments, physics, electrochemical and interface research, various high-precision instrument analysis, molecular Biology and Life Sciences, IVF, Tissue Culture, Animal and Plant Cell Culture, Amino Acid Analysis, Two-Way Swimming; basic application type, suitable for high performance liquid chromatography, ion chromatography, atomic absorption and spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, amino acid analyzers, PCR applications and analysis, gas analysis equipment, high-precision optical lens processing, analytical reagents and pharmaceuticals Configuration, dilution, precision instrument analysis of water and so on.

The survey on the use of water purifiers shows that among the five types, the most common physicochemical analysis type is nearly half, while the basic application type ranks second with more than two percent, and the ultra-low TOC ranks with a half-rate ratio. The three, followed by both the ultra-low TOC and the heat-removal type, accounted for about 10%, and the pure heat source type took the last place at a rate of less than one percent.

Regarding water sources for water purifiers, more than 40% of the respondents stated that they directly purified the tap water with a pure water filter, distilled water and deionized water purified through a pure water filter, and less than 10% of the respondents The authors stated that RO water (reverse-osmosis water) was purified by a pure water filter and used for related applications.

The results of the daily water consumption survey showed that 60% or more of the surveyed households use less than 100 liters of water per day, users with daily water consumption of 100-300 liters accounted for 17%, 300-500 liters of daily water accounted for 10%, and Water consumption of 500-1000 liters or even more than 1000 liters is relatively small: the former is about 6%, and the latter is about 5%.

The survey results on the water quality of water purifiers are still relatively gratifying, with about 46% of users expressing satisfaction, 51% of users expressing general, and only 3% of users expressing dissatisfaction. The results of the survey on the ease of use of the system showed that 58% of users considered it convenient, 32% considered it normal, and only 10% considered it inconvenient. The results of the survey on after-sales service satisfaction show that 33% of users are satisfied, 60% are average, and 7% are unsatisfied. The satisfaction survey on suppliers' consumables price shows that 22% of users are satisfied, 62% are average, and 16% are dissatisfied. The above survey shows that users are generally satisfied with the quality of existing water purifiers, the ease of use of the system, and the after-sales service and consumables prices. Of course, manufacturers are also better able to spend more time thinking about improving ease of use and reducing consumables prices. To better meet the needs of users.

In this survey, 18% of users stated that their units or departments had plans to purchase water purifiers in the near future, and 82% of users stated that there was no plan to purchase water purifiers in the near future. This data shows that the current domestic market demand for water purifiers is still larger.