Spectroscopy Market Profile: Photodiode Array UV-Vis Spectrophotometers

The use of photodiode-array (PDA) ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectrophotometers is mainly adopted in industrial applications such as pharmaceutical and chemical production, coatings, or food and agriculture processing. Moreover, in the laboratory market, PDAs are better known as a detector for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Nevertheless, PDA spectrophotometers remain an important part of the overall UV–vis market that continues to grow.

Benchtop PDA spectrophotometers are used for routine testing, particularly in pharmaceutical and chemical quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC). The advantage of the PDA over scanning UV–vis spectrophotometers is its speed, allowing the capture of the full spectrum (190–1100 nm) in under 1 s. The PDA can be a workhorse in the laboratory due to the robust design. And because there are almost no moving parts, the instrument can be moved to different laboratories without recalibration.

Dissolution testing is among the key applications for PDA spectrophotometers, particularly when a laboratory is analyzing a large number of samples. In a high-volume laboratory, for example, a single PDA instrument can be used to analyze samples from multiple dissolution testing systems. Other applications include routine analysis of environmental samples such as water and wastewater, and food and beverage samples such as wine.

PDA spectrophotometers are also being used in bio and life science research laboratories to calculate the concentration of nucleic acids or measure enzyme activity. These instruments are specialized systems, which will typically involve an add-on module that allows the analysis of micro-volume amounts of sample.

The demand for PDA spectrophotometers accounts for less than 10% of the UV–vis spectrometer market. Overall growth is expected to be somewhat modest, driven by instrument replacements from QA and QC testing in both pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Demand from food and environmental applications, as well as life science research are also burgeoning areas for PDA spectrophotometers. Agilent Technologies, which currently offers the Cary 8454, has the largest share of the market. Other leading vendors include Analytik Jena, PerkinElmer, and SCINCO.

2016 PDA spectrophotometer demand by application sector.

Market size and growth estimates were adopted from TDA’s Industry Data, a database of market profiles from independent market research firm, Top-Down Analytics. For more information, contact Glenn Cudiamat, General Manager at (888) 953-5655 or glenn.cudiamat@tdaresearch.com. Glenn is a market research expert and has been covering the analytical instrumentation industry for nearly two decades.