Water-based coatings will dominate the U.S. protective coatings market in the future.

The increase in U.
.
protection coatings and specialty coatings was driven primarily by developments in the industrial construction industry and increased federal highway maintenance spending. In 2015, as oil prices reached their lows for many years, the growth in related coating consumption was dampened and reflected in a number of protective and specialty coatings markets, particularly marine coatings for offshore drilling platforms. In addition, the automotive repair industry also accounts for a large share of the market demand for protective coatings and specialty coatings, but growth in this coating consumer sector has been dampened by the fact that automotive OEM coatings are becoming more durable and traffic accident rates continue to decline.
4, 2015, Obama signed the Fix America Ground Transportation Act (FAST Act), which increased the country's demand for road and bridge coatings. In addition, recent legislative efforts in the United States to address the problems posed by a growing number of structurally defective bridges will also drive demand for road and bridge coatings.
The latest research from Thefreedonia Group, an industry research firm based in Cleveland, shows that while solvent-based coatings have historically dominated the U.S. protective coatings and specialty coatings industry,
water-based coatings
will dominate this field by 2020, surpassing solvent-based coatings as the leading variety.
This change in trend is mainly due to the further impact of regulatory policies and regulations on the protection of coatings and professional coatings markets, with traditional organic solvents losing their edge in coating formulations in favour of water-based coatings, high solids and other coating products with low or no VOC emissions. This trend is emerging in the U.S. protective coatings and specialty coatings market.
Freedonia expects demand for water-based coatings to grow at a rate of 2.5% per year by 2020 in the U.S. market for protective coatings and specialty coatings, and will reach 85 million gallons by then, replacing solvent-based coatings as the market leader.
Is the most important alternative to water-based coatings in the automotive repair paint market, where solvent-based coatings have historically been widely used, and end-users of automotive repair paints are increasingly turning to water-based coatings because of their advantages over solvent-based coatings in terms of performance, such as color matching capabilities.
addition, water-based coatings have gained a foothold in the
Marine Coatings
market, as some global treaties and U.S. regulations already set strict limits on harmful emissions from marine coatings. For the main substrates (metals) used in shipbuilding, water-based coatings provide good adhesion and are resistant to the harsh environments faced by climate, chemicals and other vessels.
Currently, the U.S. protection coatings and specialty coatings market is valued at approximately $4.9 billion, with major applications including industrial maintenance, automotive repair, marine equipment, roads and bridges, and other infrastructure protection and specialty markets, with suppliers including PPG, Sherwin-Williams, Valspar, RPM, Axalta, AkzoNobel, BASF and Ennis-Flint.