Cryocooler Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

Cryocooler Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

The Cryocooler market was valued at USD 2.73 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 4.12 billion during the forecast period and grow at a CAGR of 7.1%. COVID-19 outbreak has impacted the global economy in 3 main ways: by directly affecting production and demand, by creating supply chain and market disturbance, and by its financial impact on firms and financial markets as well as on the healthcare industry further affecting the demand for cryocoolers.

Key Highlights

• Further, cryocoolers are used extensively in defense applications, majorly for the cooling of infrared focal planes. Quite specifically, cryocoolers are typically used to cool intrinsic semiconductor-type focal planes for mid-wave infrared (nominally 3-5-micron wavelength) and longwave infrared (nominally 9-12 micron) sensors.
• A significant number of improvements to cryocoolers have occurred in the past two decades, which, in turn, have allowed many more applications of cryogenics to flourish and find their way into the marketplace.
• Cooling of infrared and visible cameras continue to provide opportunities for small cryocoolers. While the recent years have witnessed a shift from cooled to un-cooled IR cameras, a market remains for high-performance infrared imagers cooled by small Stirling cycle cryocoolers.
• Developing spacecraft thermal management systems that depend on predictable cryocooler performance is one of the most challenging aspects of space thermal system design. Most of the developers rely on very sparse cryocooler performance data when conducting their system-level trade-offs.

Cryocooler Market Trends

Healthcare is Expected to Hold a Significant Share

• In the healthcare sector, the increasing demand for cryocoolers is attributed to its extensive utilization in proton therapy, MRI systems, cryosurgery, and liquefaction of oxygen in hospitals. Proton therapy is a kind of particle therapy that directs proton beams at cancer cells with precision. Many high-powered magnets used in proton therapy are superconducting magnets and need to be cooled to liquid helium temperatures, using cryocoolers.
• The Union Finance Minister of India announced various measures to boost the healthcare sector as a part of the first full-term budget of the second term of the Government presented in the Parliament. With an objective to enhance healthcare infrastructure, the government allocated INR 690 billion (Union Budget 2020-2021) for the healthcare sector.
• Another emerging commercial use of cryocoolers is in cooling high-temperature superconducting filters for cellular telephone base stations. Presently, four companies in the United States offer such systems (Conductus, Superconducting Technologies Inc., Spectral Solutions Inc., and Illinois Superconductor). These superconducting receivers use thin-film or thick-film High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) filters to provide very narrow band-reject filters or bandpass filters with very steep skirts. Combined with cryogenically cooled low-noise amplifiers, these receivers allow a base station to either handle more calls, hear a handset further away, improve call quality, or a combination of these.
• The density of diagnostic imaging units can be one measurement to define the quality of a country’s healthcare infrastructure. However, end-user application segments such as medical have shown steady growth even during the pandemic. The demand for cryocoolers has not been impacted significantly from these verticals during the first half of 2020.

North America is Expected to Hold the Largest Share

• The cryocooler market in the North American region has been escalating as Cryocoolers are primarily used for Proton Therapy in Cancer Treatment. American Cancer Society states that in 2020, there will be an estimated 1.8 million new cancer cases diagnosed and 606,520 cancer deaths in the region. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States; the market for cryocoolers is expected to boost during the forecast period.
• Cryocoolers are also used for satellite monitoring and missile guidance in the military sector. The United States Navy’s aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford has been installed with cryocooler technology.
• According to the United States Department of Energy, advances in cavity technology, materials, and cryocooler development may lower the barrier to industrial and medical applications of superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) technology. After completing more than 5,000 cavity tests in the Vertical Test Area (VTA) using liquid helium, in March 2020, a team from the SRF Institute's R&D Department at Jefferson Lab cooled and successfully tested an SRF cavity for the first time in one of the VTA's vertical cryostats without any liquid helium.
• Apart from that, the rapid shortage of helium gas across the developing economies has also supported the market's growth in North America. According to the US Geological Survey, in 2020, the helium exports from the United States amounted to 100 million cubic meters, an increase of 19.04% compared to 2018. The fact that cryogenic fluids such as liquid helium, liquid nitrogen, or very cold nitrogen and helium gas are utilized for cryocooling, the market is forecast to get a boost.

Cryocooler Industry Overview

The cryocooler market is competitive and consists of several players. Many companies are increasing their market presence by introducing new products, expanding their operations, or entering into strategic mergers and acquisitions.

• December 2020 - Clean Power Hydrogen (CPH2) partnered with AFCryo, one of the prominent cryogenic systems manufacturers for gas separation and hydrogen liquefaction, is a multi-national tie-up where the combined technology will offer the market a cheaper and more reliable way of generating green hydrogen from renewable sources. AFCryo designed larger cryogenics systems that will form the back-end of the electrolyzer technology for scales above 1MW.
• January 2020 - NASA recently developed a 20 Watt 20 Kelvin cryocooler is a critical step in enabling zero boil-off of liquid hydrogen. Active thermal control of cryogenic propellants is made possible by integrating a cryocooler to intercept and collect heat from the cryogenic tank support structure and/or a broad area cooled shield.

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