Archive
SYNTHETIC FUELS. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. Synthetic natural gas
Summary
The production of synthetic natural gas has several important applications. First of all, this technology allows converting abundant coal or biomass resources as well as solid waste into natural gas, and then feeding it into existing gas distribution networks or gas storage facilities. In addition, this gas can be used as transport fuel. The traditional production line of synthetic natural gas includes feedstock gasification, resulting syngas cleanup and its subsequent methanation. As a result of the methanation reaction, carbon oxides interact with hydrogen producing methane, water and large amounts of heat. In this case, nickel catalysts are most often used. The widespread diffusion of this technology is hampered by serious technical and economic problems, including those related to ensuring the thermal stability and durability of the catalyst, optimizing the design of reactors, the utilization of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, as well as those associated with the significant dependence of the final price of gas on the characteristics and cost of feedstock. Recent patented technical solutions presented in this patent bulletin are aimed at improving the technological processes mentioned above and overcoming the existing barriers.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to synthetic natural gas and includes patents published in 2016-2018. Research methodology is available on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 173 patent documents. The patents were granted in 15 patent offices around the world. 112 applicants from 12 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 210 subgroups of the International Patent Classification were encountered in the patent documents.
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 patents during the period of time under revision was granted by the patent office of China.
For each of the patent documents selected for the examination in the present bulletin the characteristics of unified indicators were preliminary defined, they include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging to one or other technological segment. This allows the internal content for each of the indicators in the aggregate array of documents to be visualized, for instance, to define the sequence and proportional correlation of technical problems the inventive solutions disclosed in the texts aim to solve. A list of the top 10 groups consisting of patent documents with identical unified indicators contains ID numbers and applicant names of respective documents; the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents.
The following information can be found for the top 10 applicants: breakdown of documents 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: General Electric (US), Sinopec China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (CN), GDF SUEZ (FR), Air Liquide (FR), Haldor Topsoe A/S (DK), Johnson Matthey Plc (GB), Praxair Technology Inc. (US), BASF, SE (DE), IHI Corporation (JP), and Johnson Mattey Davy Technologies Limited (GB).
The prominent documents pages contain the top 10 patents with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and the shortest patent pending time.
A list of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the granted patents is provided in the conclusive part of the bulletin.
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 synthetic fuel production technologies.
