Battery Electrolyte Recovery Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (2 records) with 2024 (3) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 11 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A narrow, recently active corpus
Battery-electrolyte recovery sits at the intersection of two larger fields — battery recycling and separation/purification engineering — but the patent record for the specific combination is still small. The corpus in scope covers 11 published records, all of them distinct patent families, filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off. Every record touches the core battery class H01M, while a minority extend into separation, crushing, centrifuging or thermal-processing classes, which marks where mechanical and thermal recovery methods are being layered onto electrochemical battery-teardown claims.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent years in the trend understate real filing activity; 2024, at 3 filings, is the latest year that can be read as a complete data point rather than a partial one.
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Filing trend and technology composition
The two views below cover the same 11 records from different angles: one tracks when the field was built, the other shows which parts of the mechanical and electrochemical stack the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings were at zero in 2017 and climbed unevenly to a peak of 3 in 2024, with 2021 at 2 filings — the +50% step from 2021 to 2024 is the clearest signal of sustained, if modest, investment in this niche.
IPC subclass composition
H01M (batteries, cells & fuel cells) appears in 100.0% of the 11 records, as expected for a battery-recovery search. Separation processes (B01D) reach 27.3% of records, while crushing, centrifuging, solid-waste disposal, furnace detail and heat-exchange classes each sit at 9.1% — one record apiece — indicating that most of the mechanical recovery hardware around electrolyte separation is still claimed narrowly rather than in depth.
Shares are the percentage of the 11 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Battery Recycling & Second Life — Battery-Electrolyte Recovery Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about battery recycling & second life — battery-electrolyte recovery patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited filings
Spent lithium-battery electrolyte recovery system and process (CN118299708A)
The filing describes a solid-liquid separation system for spent lithium batteries that combines a crushing mechanism, a solid-liquid separation mechanism for filtering battery-shell fragments from electrolyte, a recovery mechanism, and an air purifier for exhaust. The stated advantages are faster electrolyte filtration, reduced clogging during screening of crushed shell fragments, higher electrolyte purity, and a higher degree of automation.Filed by Hubei Nuobang Technology, 2024-07-05 — the most-cited record in this corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN118299708A | 一种废旧锂电池电解液回收系统及工艺 | 5 |
| 2 | CN116435639A | 一种锂电池电解液回收装置 | 4 |
| 3 | CN217544718U | 一种退役锂电池电解液回收系统 | 3 |
| 4 | CN220021246U | 一种锂电池电解液回收装置 | 1 |
| 5 | CN113644333A | 一种回收电池中电解液的装置和方法 | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations; treat this as a signal of influence on the field, not of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (5 of 5 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns stand out once the ranking, trend and class data are read together.
The top of the ranking is shallow, not deep
The five leading assignees account for 54.5% of all 11 records in scope, and the full ranked list of 10 companies accounts for every record filed — there is no long, thin tail below them because the entire field is only 11 records deep. This is a field still being staked out, not one with an entrenched leader.
Growth is real but the base is small
Filings grew from 2 in 2021 to 3 in 2024, a +50% increase over three years. That is a genuine upward step, but the absolute numbers mean a single new entrant or a single quiet year can move the trend line sharply in either direction.
A single-jurisdiction field so far
Every record in scope was received in China. Anyone assessing freedom-to-operate outside China should treat this as an early-stage domestic field rather than assume equivalent coverage exists elsewhere.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to battery recycling & second life — battery-electrolyte recovery patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps for teams deciding whether to file, license or design around.
Map claims against the under-claimed IPC branches
Separation, crushing, centrifuging and thermal-processing classes each cover only one or a few records apiece. A claim built around one of these mechanical or thermal steps, rather than the electrolyte-recovery outcome itself, may face far less prior art.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the flat assignee tail for new entrants
With no assignee holding more than 2 of the 11 records, a new filer entering with a differentiated mechanical or thermal approach is not fighting an entrenched incumbent — it is competing against a field that has not yet consolidated.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaWatch for the 2025–2026 filing catch-up
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent flatness in the most recent years likely understates real activity. Re-checking this trend in a year will surface filings that are not yet visible today.
Set a filing alert in EurekaCommon questions about battery-electrolyte recovery patents
The corpus in scope for battery-electrolyte recovery and recycling contains 11 published records, and each of those records is a distinct patent family — there is no continuation or divisional overlap to strip out. This is a small, still-forming field rather than a mature one. Anyone benchmarking against a larger battery-recycling category should treat this 11-record figure as the narrower electrolyte-specific slice, not the whole recycling landscape.
The ranking covers 10 assignees across the 11 records, with the leading company holding 2 records and most others holding a single filing each. Fifth place and tenth place both sit at 1 record, so the ranking flattens out quickly rather than showing a dominant incumbent. All of the ranked assignees are Chinese entities, spanning industrial chemical firms, environmental-technology companies and at least one research institution.
Filings rose from 2 in 2021 to 3 in 2024, a +50% increase over that three-year span, which is the clearest and most recent complete trend figure available. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, years after 2024 are still filling in and should not yet be read as a slowdown. The honest read is steady, small-scale growth in a field that remains concentrated in a single jurisdiction.
The core battery class H01M appears in 100.0% of the 11 records, which is expected given the search scope, but supporting mechanical and thermal classes are thin: separation processes reach 27.3% of records, while crushing, centrifuging, solid-waste disposal, furnace detail and heat-exchange classes each sit at only 9.1%, or one record. That pattern suggests the mechanical hardware around electrolyte separation and thermal solvent recovery is less densely claimed than the electrochemical battery-side claims, which is where new entrants have the most room to build a defensible position.
All 11 records in scope were received in China, with no other receiving office represented in the current data. This means the visible patent record is effectively a domestic Chinese field so far, and companies planning to operate or license outside China should not assume equivalent prior art or freedom-to-operate conditions exist in other jurisdictions. A separate jurisdiction-specific search would be needed before relying on this dataset for filings outside China.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.