Market Direction and Application Opportunities for T/S Growth in Korea

Before 1970s, the focus of industrial development was mainly on manufacturing, but since the 1980s, it has shifted towards quality control and maintenance due to increasing environmental issues. Based on these trends, spray coating could be established in Korea due to its environmental friendly nature. In the 1980s, the thermal spray market in Korea was based on commercial and military aero space industry (Korean Air Line and Sam Sung Aerospace respectively). And after 1990s, the market domain expanded rapidly to the steel, automobile, textile, paper, electronics, and boilers industry etc. Hence, more than 40 thermal spraying companies are committed in Korea. From the start of 21st century, IT and energy resource have surfaced as potential fields for application of thermal spray. Ceramic coatings on various components of semiconductor fabrication equipment as well as manufacturing of solid oxide fuel cell are some of the representative applications. Bulk metallic glass materials and other functional materials also have potential application in many fields such as aero space and biomedical etc. Nowadays the focus is on upgrading the spray coating technology from being a tool for repairing and surface modification of products to being a main production method for making bulk and products. In this address, the share of spray industries in the economy of Korea and its applications are introduced. Also, Korean spray technology is compared with world standards and the necessary up-gradation for future development is suggested.