Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Concentrated filing base. The leader holds 42 records but the top 5 combined account for only 16.0% of all 1,047 records in scope — this field has no dominant gatekeeper.
- China dominates the receiving offices. 809 of the tracked filings route through China, versus 53 in the United States and 42 through WIPO's PCT channel.
- Filing kept climbing through 2024. Filings rose from 73 in 2021 to 102 in 2024, a 40% increase, before the 2025-26 count understates activity due to publication lag.
Filing growth compares 2021 (73 records) with 2024 (102) — 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 1,047 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) uses alternating cation- and anion-exchange membranes with a bipolar interlayer to split water into acid and base streams under an applied field, recovering acids and bases directly from salt solutions without added chemicals. The 1,047 records in scope span filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from a search anchored on water-splitting efficiency, current efficiency, membrane delamination and acid/base concentration outcomes — the practical failure and performance modes that separate a lab demonstration from an operable plant.
Filing activity peaked at 110 records in 2023, and the most recent complete year, 2024, still shows continued growth over 2021. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the trend chart are provisional and will rise as more applications publish.
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Filing trends and technology composition
The dataset breaks down by year, by IPC subclass and by receiving office, giving three independent views of where the claim space is dense and where it is thin.
A growing filing base, not yet saturated
Filings climbed from 58 in 2017 to a peak of 110 in 2023, and the 2021-to-2024 span alone grew 40% (73 to 102). The apparent dip after 2024 reflects publication lag rather than a real slowdown.
Separation and water treatment dominate the classification mix
B01D and C02F each cover 44.4% of the 1,047 records, confirming that most filings frame BMED as a separation or wastewater process rather than a pure electrochemistry invention. C07C (19.8%) and the C01B/C01D inorganic-compound classes (15.9% and 14.3%) show where the recovered acids and bases get claimed downstream; C25B (7.9%) and B01J (3.0%) mark the smaller electrolytic and catalytic-interlayer slices.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,047 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about bipolar membrane electrodialysis and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Three-compartment bipolar membrane electrodialysis of salts of amino acids
This invention relates to an improved electrodialysis method for preparing an amino acid from a salt of the amino acid utilizing a three-compartment bipolar membrane electrodialysis process wherein an aqueous electrolyte comprising an exogenous acid is added to the acid compartment of a three-compartment bipolar membrane apparatus. The exogenous acid is different than the amino acid and typically has a pKa less than the pKa of the amino acid.Filed by Monsanto Technology LLC, published 2025-01-07 as US12186709B2 — a recent example of BMED claimed specifically around amino-acid salt recovery rather than generic acid/base production.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JP2009269810A | Method for producing high-purity lithium hydroxide | 127 |
| 2 | CN108517409A | 一种从废旧动力电池正极废料中回收有价金属的方法 | 75 |
| 3 | CN102335553A | 一种钠基烟气脱硫液的再生方法 | 61 |
| 4 | US4880513A | Method and apparatus for generating acid and base regenerants and the use thereof to regenerate ion-exchange … | 61 |
| 5 | JP2012171827A | Method for recovering lithium from aqueous solution containing lithium | 58 |
| 6 | US6495013B2 | Bipolar membrane electrodialysis of multivalent metal salts whose corresponding base is insoluble | 57 |
| 7 | CN102531927A | 一种利用双极膜电渗析制备四丙基氢氧化铵的方法 | 48 |
| 8 | CN106630040A | 一种选择性双极膜电渗析系统及其应用 | 42 |
| 9 | CN105254084A | 一种脱硫废水的双极膜电渗析处理方法及装置 | 42 |
| 10 | CN107720786A | 一种基于膜分离耦合法的电池级氢氧化锂制备方法 | 37 |
Citation counts accumulate over time inside this corpus, so older records such as the 2009 lithium hydroxide patent and the 1989 ion-exchange regeneration patent lead the table; treat citation rank as a signal of influence, not of current commercial relevance.
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. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once family counts, IPC shares and geography are read together.
No single assignee controls the field
The leading assignee holds 42 records out of 1,047, and the top 5 combined reach only 16.0% of all records in scope. That is a fragmented landscape: freedom-to-operate risk sits in specific claim families, not in a blanket dominance by one filer.
Filing is heavily China-centric
China's receiving office accounts for 809 of the tracked filings, dwarfing the United States (53), WIPO's PCT route (42) and Europe (41). Anyone benchmarking global freedom-to-operate needs a China-specific search, not just an English-language one.
Momentum is still building, not fading
Filings rose from 73 in 2021 to 102 in 2024, and the annual peak so far is 110 in 2023. The lower counts shown for 2025-26 reflect publication lag rather than declining interest.
Filings cluster in separation and water treatment framing
B01D and C02F each cover 44.4% of records, while the electrolytic-production class C25B sits at just 7.9%. Claims framed around the electrochemical cell itself are comparatively rare next to claims framed around the separation process or the treated stream.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to bipolar membrane electrodialysis, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has cooled
The ranked leaders in this dataset show fragmented ownership with a small cluster of co-filing entities, and recent-year momentum data suggests the most active historical filers have gone quiet in the latest tracked year.
A modest lead, not a monopoly
The top-ranked assignee holds 42 records against a fifth-place figure of 28 and a tenth-place figure of 20 — a gradual taper rather than a sharp cliff, consistent with a technology still open to new entrants.
Tight clusters of affiliated filers
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the data, with the strongest pairing linking two closely related entities on 31 shared records and a third affiliate on 28 shared records each. This points to corporate-group filing strategy rather than independent competitors converging on the same claims.
Several historical leaders show zero recent filings
Multiple assignees that built large historical portfolios, including one with a -100% year-on-year change, show zero filings in the latest tracked year. That is as likely to reflect publication lag on very recent applications as an actual exit from the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Yibin Silaiya Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang University of Technology | 0 | -100% |
| Yibin Silaiya Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Yibin Haixiang Chemical Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Processing | 0 | — |
| Monsanto Technology LLC | 0 | — |
| Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above describe the landscape as it stands at the data cut-off. Turning them into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means drilling into specific claim families.
Check freedom-to-operate against the ranked leaders
With no single assignee holding more than a small share of the field, a freedom-to-operate review needs to check claim scope across several ranked leaders rather than one dominant portfolio.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTrack the under-claimed sub-areas before they fill in
Catalytic-interlayer durability and membrane-delamination claims sit well below the density of the core separation classes, which is where an early, specific claim still has room.
Run a white-space search in EurekaWatch for the 2025-26 publication catch-up
The apparent recent-year slowdown is a publication-lag artefact. Re-running this landscape in 6-12 months will surface filings that exist today but have not yet published.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranked leaders in this dataset are led by an assignee holding 42 of the 1,047 records in scope, with the fifth-ranked company at 28 records and the tenth at 20. The top 5 combined account for only 16.0% of all records, and the top 10 combined for 26.4%, so ownership is fragmented across a ranking of 100 companies rather than concentrated in one or two players. Several of the historically largest filers show zero filings in the most recent tracked year, though this may partly reflect publication lag rather than a genuine exit from the field.
Filings grew from 73 in 2021 to 102 in 2024, a 40% increase over that three-year span, with an annual peak of 110 in 2023. The lower counts recorded for 2025 and 2026 are not evidence of a slowdown; publication typically lags the actual filing date by around 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any patent trend understate real activity. Based on the 2021-2024 trend, the technology was still gaining filing momentum going into the most recent complete year.
The two largest classes are B01D (separation processes) and C02F (water and wastewater treatment), each covering 44.4% of the 1,047 records, showing that most filings frame the technology as a separation or treatment process. C07C (acyclic and carbocyclic compounds) covers 19.8% and the inorganic-compound classes C01B and C01D cover 15.9% and 14.3% respectively, reflecting claims on the recovered acid or base products. The electrolytic-cell class C25B, at 7.9%, and the catalysis class B01J, at 3.0%, are comparatively thin, which is one reason cell-design and catalytic-interlayer claims look like white space relative to the rest of the field.
China is by far the largest receiving office in this dataset with 809 filings, followed by the United States at 53, WIPO's PCT route at 42, Europe (EPO) at 41, and Canada and Japan at 16 each. This distribution means a China-focused search is essential for any freedom-to-operate check in this field, not an afterthought. Companies evaluating global filing strategy should also note that a filing through the PCT or EPO route does not capture the bulk of activity, which sits in Chinese national filings.
US12186709B2, assigned to Monsanto Technology LLC and published 2025-01-07, claims a three-compartment bipolar membrane electrodialysis process for recovering an amino acid from its salt, where an exogenous acid with a lower pKa than the amino acid is added to the acid compartment. It is narrow to that specific chemistry and compartment configuration, so it does not block BMED work outside amino-acid salt recovery or outside the described acid-addition step. Anyone working on amino-acid recovery via BMED should review the pKa-based acid-selection limitation closely, since a process that adds a different exogenous acid or a different compartment arrangement is a plausible design-around route worth checking against the full claim set.
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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.