# Water treatment chemicals

Coagulants, polymers, inhibitors and biocides that clean drinking water, wastewater and industrial cooling and boiler water; a $41 billion service-heavy market.

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/

Specialty chemicals · Industrial & consumer specialties · No. 87

- Product family
- Feedstock: Minerals and salts
- not published as a world tonnage; most coagulant is sold as liquid (for example PAC at about 10% Al2O3), so tonnes are dominated by water content
- 1.0 t CO₂e per t
- HS 382499
 Specialty chemicals · Industrial & consumer specialties · Foundation · Matter

Before tap water reaches you, a plant doses it with coagulants and disinfectants from a $41 billion chemical industry.

Chart: Illustration: Water treatment chemicals

##### Where it comes from

Chart: Map of where it comes from

Coagulants are simple: aluminium hydroxide or iron is dissolved in acid near customers; polyacrylamide starts from acrylonitrile, about 0.75 t per t of acrylamide.

##### Three things to know

1. Municipal drinking water and sewage are the biggest users, at 23.0% of market value, about $9.5 billion.
2. Polyacrylamide carries about 4.8 t CO2e per tonne, while alum is about 0.79 t, so polymers are far more carbon-intensive.
3. The EU limits leftover acrylamide in drinking water to 0.10 µg/l, setting the purity of polymers allowed in potable treatment.

##### The journey

1. 1 **Raw materials**Bauxite, scrap iron, acids, acrylonitrile
2. 2 **Coagulants, polymers**Alum, PAC, ferric salts, polyacrylamide
3. 3 **Formulated blends**Scale inhibitors and biocides mixed
4. 4 **Dosing**Settles solids, stops scale, kills microbes
5. 5 **Clean water**Drinking water, sewage, cooling and boilers

##### Go deeper pick a tab to open it in full

## Other sections

- [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/overview/index.md)
- [Correlation](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/correlation/index.md)
- [Production route](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/routes/index.md)
- [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/production/index.md)
- [Feedstocks](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/feedstocks/index.md)
- [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/cycles/index.md)
- [Trading](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/trading/index.md)
- [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/movement/index.md)
- [Regulation](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/regulation/index.md)
- [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/characteristics/index.md)
- [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/emissions/index.md)
- [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/water_treatment/links/index.md)