Specialty Water Treatment Chemicals Market To Hit $57.9B By 2030

The report provides a detailed analysis of the global market for specialty water treatment chemicals, offering qualitative and quantitative insights into market trends, revenues and growth drivers. It segments the market by function (including corrosion inhibitors, coagulants, biocides, scale inhibitors and nanochemicals), treatment type (industrial, municipal, wastewater and seawater), source (conventional and biobased), end user (such as power, oil and gas, pulp and paper, metal and chemical industries), application (process and treatment), and region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America and MEA). The study highlights emerging trends like sustainability through biobased chemicals and technological advances in water treatment solutions.

The factors driving the market include:

Decline in Freshwater Resources: Freshwater availability is decreasing due to population growth, industrialization, and climate change. This scarcity pushes industries and municipalities to adopt advanced water treatment solutions, increasing demand for specialty chemicals that enable water reuse and recycling.

Stringency on Water Standards and Water Discharge Regulations: Governments are enforcing stricter water quality and discharge norms to protect ecosystems and the health of their citizens. Industries must comply with these regulations, driving the use of specialty chemicals like coagulants, biocides, and flocculants to meet legal standards.

Water Quality Issues: Contamination from pollutants, heavy metal and pathogens is rising globally. Poor water quality impacts industrial processes and public health, creating a need for chemicals that improve clarity, remove toxins and control microbial growth.

Nutrient Recovery: Wastewater contains valuable nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Recovering these reduces pollution and supports sustainability. Specialty chemicals play a key role in processes that extract these nutrients for reuse, such as fertilizer production.

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Report Synopsis

Innovations

• Scimplify is a business-to-business (B2B) platform focused on end-to-end sourcing and manufacturing of specialty chemicals. The company raised $3.67 million in funding from 3one4 Capital and Beenext. The company intends to shift to a 60% export-oriented model, expanding its footprint to 20 countries and entering four new chemical categories. Furthermore, Scimplifi will establish laboratories in three additional categories to support ongoing research efforts.

• In 2025, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) entered a TADOX Technology and Trademark License Agreement (TTLA) with Ion Exchange India with a focus on commercializing TERI's patented wastewater treatment technology for industrial applications.

Emerging startups

• Scimplify
• Solugen
• Distil

AI Impact on the Market for Specialty Water Treatment Chemicals

The chemical industry has the lowest exposure to gen AI due to its long innovation cycles, stringent regulatory demands, high upfront costs, a concentrated customer base that drives demand for rapid adoption of advances, and limited data availability. In the future, AI transformation in the chemical industry will be more comprehensive, leading to increased automation through AI-generated chemical compounds and autonomous to self-driving labs.