Japan Pionics (President: Masaaki Iijima,) of purifier manufacturer anticipates a flat sales of gas purifiers for 2017 comparing with the previous year. In the first half year there were quite good order entries for the N2 purifiers of 1000 to 5000 m3/h class for adsorption at a normal temperature for shipment to China, but the sales amount turned out to have decreased by 10 % comparing with last year. However, it is expected that in the latter half of the year there will be more orders for mainly large-type equipment including an enquiry for a 15000m3-class purifier. The domestic market, on the other hand, is also getting active with increasing orders mainly for N2 purification of maximum 1000m3/h output and also H2 purification of the palladium-alloy membrane permeation system, anticipating users’ renewal of equipment. The company expects an increase of 30% in the sales of domestic business. For reference, the ratio of Pionics’ equipment business is 70% overseas and 30% domestic (estimated on a sales amount basis).

Person from sales department manager and chief of technological research commented about the recent demand for the overseas market that the Chinese investments to LCD business has saturated and a full-scale demand for semiconductor plant machinery and facilities will come up from now on. He said, “In case there is no lineup of large-scale equipment, in particular, no enquiry or approach can be expected in many cases. As for LED, we can expect a modest movement in demand for hydrogen or Ammonia purifiers as seen in a topic of new plant construction in Malaysia or some movement in Singapore.” The purifier market abroad will probably show up in the Southeast Asian countries other than the existing Chinese market in the future.