Archive
BIOENERGY. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Cellulosic Ethanol
Summary
Cellulosic ethanol is a type of biofuel produced from lignocellulose, which mainly consists of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Maizestover, miscanthus grass species, wood chips and the by-products of lawn and tree maintenance are some of the more popular cellulosic materials for ethanol production. Currently, two processes are available to produce ethanol from cellulose: cellulolysis, where the feed is hydrolysed with the help of enzymes, fermented and distilled, as well as gasification, which turns the feedstock into carbon monoxide and hydrogen to be subsequently fermented or chemically catalysed. Although lignocellulose is the most abundant plant material resource, its usability is curtailed by its rigid structure. As a result, costly pre-treatment is needed to liberate the cellulose from the lignin in order to prepare it for subsequent hydrolysis. However, most pre-treatment processes are not effective when applied to feedstock with high lignin content, such as forest biomass. The applications presented herein give an overview of the latest inventions concerning the production of cellulosic ethanol.
A selection of patent applications related to cellulosic ethanol and published by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 is provided for review in the present bulletin. General research methodology can be found at the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The present bulletin includes 1294 patent applications, prepared by applicants from 32 countries and registered in 34 patent offices. The patent documents mention 354 applicants and 670 IPC subgroups.
Key Highlights
Statistical information presented in the bulletin includes distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), and data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The largest number of applications during the period of time under revision was registered by the patent office of China.
Based on the analysis of each of the patent applications, internal characteristics of unified indicators (technical problems, types of inventive solutions, belonging to one or other technological segment) were found, which allowed specific features for each of the indicators for the entire array of documents to be defined, for instance, to define the leading problems or technical solution types that were disclosed by the inventors the most. Document lists are provided for the ten most popular groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators, including their ID numbers and applicant names.
The following information can be found for the top 10 applicants: breakdown of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices, technological indicators, as well as the estimation of their share in the established intellectual property market. The 10 leading applicants by the number of patent documents were: Xyleco Inc. (US), API Intellectual Property Holdings LLC (US), Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. (NL), IFP (École Nationale Supérieure du Pétrole et des Moteurs) (FR), DSM IP Assets B.V. (NL), Novozymes A/S (DK), Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) (FR), Proteus (FR), BP Corporation North America, Inc. (US), Lallemand Hungary Liquidity Management LLC (HU).
The prominent documents pages contain the top 10 patent applications with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and those not being a part of patent family.
The patent bulletin also includes a list of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by patent offices and indicated by the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of bioenergy.
