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SYNTHETIC FUELS. Latest published applications 2017-2019. Fischer-Tropsch catalysts
Summary
Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is a process used for transforming organic matter into hydrocarbons. Originally designed in the 1920s, interest in this reaction has grown considerably in recent years due to worldwide efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. FT synthesis employs several types of catalysts which are highly diversified in their formulations, depending on their efficiency in chain growing and on the olefin to paraffin ratio. The most common among them consist of the transition metals cobalt (Co), iron (Fe), and ruthenium (Ru). Nickel can also be used, but it is prone to methanation. Cocatalysts are particularly active for FT synthesis when the feedstock is natural gas. Co is more costly than Fe, but also shows much less water-gas-shift activity. Fe catalysts usually need alkali promotion to attain high activity and stability. Ru is very efficient as catalyst material, but also rather expensive. One of the greatest drawbacks of all FT catalysts is that they exhibit loss of activity with time-on-stream. For example, iron catalysts can easily suffer sulphur poisoning. Also, deactivation can occur when operated under low temperature conditions (220–250°C), due to reoxidation of the active phase and sintering of crystallites. Co catalysts, on the other hand, can only be used efficiently in the low-temperature range as higher temperatures cause increased methane formation which affects them more severely. Nevertheless, Co catalysts are a useful alternative to Fe catalysts because they are active at lower synthesis pressures, so higher catalyst costs can be offset by lower operating costs. Also, coke deposition is higher for Fe catalysts. The applications presented in the bulletin are aimed at improving some of the aforementioned issues.
A selection of patent applications related to Fischer-Tropsch catalysts and published by patent offices around the globe in 2017-2019 is provided for review in the present bulletin. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The present bulletin includes 450 patent applications, prepared by applicants from 15 countries and registered in 17 patent offices. The patent documents mention 137 applicants and 251 IPC subgroups.
Key Highlights
The bulletin provides general statistical figures, including the overall 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 most popular patent offices among the applicants were: CNIPA (CN), WIPO, USPTO (US), EPO, KIPO (KR), JPO (JP), CIPO (CA), INPI (FR), IP Australia (AU), INPI (BR).
From the analysis of texts of applications presented in this bulletin, detailed information is extracted for each of the unified indicators, which include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging of a patent document to one or other technological segment. The results of the statistical processing of this data for the entire array of the applications examined are summarized in the correspondingly-named diagrams and tables. In addition to that, a list of the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators is provided, where the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents and include ID numbers and applicant names of the documents.
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: China Petroleum & Chemical Company (CN), BP PLC (GB), IFP (École Nationale Supérieure du Pétrole et des Moteurs) (FR), National Institute of Clean and Low Carbon Energy (NICE) (CN), Sinopec RIPP Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (CN), Shenhua Group Co Ltd (CN), Sinopec SRIPT Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology (CN), IFP Energies Nouvelles (FR), CAS DICP Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN), Wuhan Kaidi Engineering Technology Research General Institute Co., Ltd. (CN).
The top prominent documents section includes three lists of the top 10 patent applications having the highest bibliographical rating, the largest number 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 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.
