Archive
SYNTHETIC FUELS. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Syngas production cycle
Summary
Synthesis gas is an essential resource for a number of industries, including fuel purification processes in oil refining, production of ammonia and fertilizers, and the production of various chemicals or synthetic fuels. Synthesis gas can be obtained from hydrocarbons or a variety of bioorganic feedstocks. This is especially important in countries where the energy sector is dominated, for example, by natural gas, as well as in China, where a lot of attention is paid to the use of coal. Since syngas contains molecules of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which are the elementary components for the synthesis of a large variety of substances with a complex molecular structure, syngas is one of the key products to successfully meet the needs of modern industrial society. In addition, hydrogen or carbon monoxide is often released from syngas as end products. For example, today more than 90% of the world's hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of natural gas. To obtain or regulate the composition of syngas, other technologies come to hand, such as partial oxidation, auto-thermal reforming, and co-shift conversion. The presented statistical bulletin contains information on recent patent applications related to syngas production technologies and may be useful to inventors or engineers specializing in the field of modern energy technologies.
A selection of patent applications related to synthetic fuels and syngas production cycle 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 Advanced Energy Technologies website. The present bulletin includes 2504 patent applications, prepared by applicants from 33 countries and registered in 39 patent offices. The patent documents mention 800 applicants and 1077 IPC subgroups.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that registered the largest number of patent applications were CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) and WIPO.
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.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes Linde AG (DE), Haldor Topsoe A/S (DK), Air Liquide (FR), Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd (JP), General Electric (US), Wuhan Kaidi Engineering Technology Research General Institute Co., Ltd. (CN), Praxair Technology Inc. (US), ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions AG (DE), BASF, SE (DE), Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. (NL). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
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 conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists 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 registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The statistics bulletin under examination serves as one of the variants to monitor advanced technical achievements in the specified industrial sector. The statistical data, rating evaluations and carefully selected patent documents provided in the bulletin can be of interest for inventors, students and educators, engineers, as well as for businessmen and investors, who in one way or another are concerned with the problems of the development of synthetic fuels and syngas production cycle.
