Brine Concentration Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- 39.5% of all 248 records sit with just five assignees, so the top of this field is genuinely concentrated rather than evenly spread.
- C02F and B01D dominate the mix at 67.3% and 45.2% of records respectively, while battery-adjacent H01M and metal-extraction C22B classes stay under 5% each — a sign of where claim density is light.
- Filing pulled back 24% from 21 records in 2021 to 16 in 2024, the last year the dataset treats as complete.
Filing growth compares 2021 (21 records) with 2024 (16) — 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 248 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Brine concentration and salt recovery sits at the intersection of desalination, zero liquid discharge and industrial wastewater treatment. This landscape draws on 248 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, indexed against terms covering electrodialysis concentration limits, evaporator integration, sodium chloride purity, scaling control, zero liquid discharge and energy consumption. The scope spans membrane-based concentration, thermal evaporator trains, and the crystallisation and purity-control steps that turn a waste brine stream into a saleable salt product.
Filing activity is read here at the family level to filter out repeat filings from the same underlying invention, and the technology mix is read across IPC subclasses rather than a single dominant code, since most records in this space touch more than one process step.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 248 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which parts of the process chain carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran from 22 in 2017 to a peak of 23 in 2018, then held in the high teens through the early 2020s before the documented pullback from 21 records in 2021 to 16 in 2024 — a 24% decline over that span. Counts for 2025 and 2026 are not yet comparable, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months and those years are still filling in.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) appears in 67.3% of the 248 records and B01D (separation processes) in 45.2%, confirming that most activity is framed as a treatment or membrane-separation problem rather than a chemistry problem. C01D (alkali-metal compounds), at 27.0%, marks the crystallisation and salt-purity layer. Smaller shares in B01J, C01B, H01M, C22B and C10J show real but thinner activity in catalysis-assisted routes, mineral by-product recovery, battery-adjacent lithium recovery, metal extraction and gasification integration — each under 7% of records.
Shares are the percentage of the 248 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Brine Concentration and Salt Recovery with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about brine concentration and salt recovery and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative recent filing
US20240359137A1 — Process of brine concentration and method for treatment of the same
Filed by Hamad Bin Khalifa University, this application combines a nanofiltration step that removes divalent ions while passing monovalent ions through, with a sequential membrane-then-thermal concentration path that carries the monovalent stream to crystallisation. Two recovery configurations are disclosed: an RO system recovering water from an FO concentrator, and an advanced MED-AB thermal route recovering water from FO brine. The stated applications span desalination plant brine, industrial and chemical effluent, and produced water from oil and gas operations.Filed 2024-10-31 — illustrates the sequential membrane-plus-thermal architecture that recurs across recent filings in this space.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20180148350A1 | Method and System for Treating Brine Waste Water | 116 |
| 2 | US5645703A | Electrodialysis-based separation process for salt recovery and recycling from waste water | 67 |
| 3 | JP2018001110A | Processing method of brine, processing method of desalinating salt water, processing system of brine, and pro… | 46 |
| 4 | US20130020259A1 | Membrane and Electrodialysis based Seawater Desalination with Salt, Boron and Gypsum Recovery | 40 |
| 5 | CN101508450A | 一种钙循环固相转化法从低镁锂比盐湖卤水中提取锂盐的方法 | 33 |
| 6 | US7097769B2 | Method of boron removal in presence of magnesium ions | 31 |
| 7 | US20170028348A1 | Osmotic separation systems and methods | 18 |
| 8 | WO2002068338A2 | Method of boron removal in presence of magnesium ions | 18 |
| 9 | US20180029904A1 | Enhanced process for selective salt recovery from wastewater, waste salts, and brines | 15 |
| 10 | WO2015157031A1 | Osmotic separation systems and methods | 15 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate references; treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not of current priority.
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.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three read-throughs from the concentration, technology-mix and geographic figures above.
The top of the field is genuinely concentrated
Five assignees account for 98 of the 248 records in scope, and the leader alone holds 45. That is a narrow set of parties controlling a disproportionate share of the documented claim space, which raises the freedom-to-operate bar for anyone entering with a membrane or thermal concentration architecture close to what they've already filed.
Treatment framing dominates over chemistry framing
Records classified under water/wastewater treatment (C02F) and separation processes (B01D) far outnumber those filed as alkali-metal chemistry (C01D) or metal extraction (C22B). Filers describing their invention primarily as a purity or crystallisation innovation, rather than a treatment-system innovation, are working in visibly thinner claim territory.
Receiving-office activity is led by China, with the US a distant second
China accounts for 84 of the tracked filings by receiving office, ahead of the United States at 38 and WIPO PCT filings at 21. Europe, India and Australia each sit at 14 or below. Anyone assessing regional freedom to operate should treat Chinese-office filings as the largest single pool of prior art to clear.
Recent-year filing has cooled among the historic leaders
Several of the assignees with the largest historic filing counts show zero filings in the latest tracked year, consistent with the broader -24% move from 21 records in 2021 to 16 in 2024. That does not necessarily mean the technology has matured — high filing density earlier in the period may simply mean the obvious claim space around established leaders is already occupied.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to brine concentration and salt recovery, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies, counted in records, and is the complete list the underlying dataset returns for this search — not a curated top-50 or top-100.
One assignee holds close to half the top-5 share alone
The leading assignee's 45 records make up close to half of the combined 98 held by the top five. That single-party weight is unusual for this category and suggests a long-running, deliberate filing programme rather than opportunistic patenting.
A steep drop-off after the top handful
Filing counts fall from 45 at the top to 10 by fifth place and 4 by tenth, a sharp gradient rather than a gradual one. That shape points to a field where a small number of parties built early positions and most later entrants filed only once or twice.
Co-filing is limited and clustered around one assignee
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them all involve the same corporate assignee paired with different named inventors. That points to in-house inventor teams rather than cross-company joint development as the norm in this field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Aquafortus Technology Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Oasys Water Inc. | 0 | — |
| Tate & Lyle Technology Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Veolia Water Technologies Inc. | 0 | — |
| IDE Technologies Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Saline Water Conversion Corp. | 0 | — |
| Texaco Development Corp. | 0 | — |
| MINIMINES CLEANTECH SOLUTIONS PTE LTD | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above set the boundaries of the field; the next step is usually narrower and specific to a claim or a competitor.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top five
With 39.5% of records held by five assignees, any new filing close to a treatment-plus-crystallisation architecture should be checked against their claim scope first.
Explore assignee claim scope in EurekaTrack the under-claimed branches before they fill in
Classes like C22B, H01M and C10J each sit under 5% of records today; that gap narrows as filing continues, so mapping it now costs less than mapping it in two years.
Map white space in EurekaWatch for the 2025–2026 publication catch-up
Filing counts for the most recent one to two years are understated by the roughly 18-month publication lag; revisit the trend once those years settle before drawing conclusions about slowdown.
Set up filing alerts in EurekaCommon questions on brine concentration patents
The assignee ranking in this dataset covers 100 companies, and it is heavily front-loaded: the top five together hold 98 of the 248 records in scope, or 39.5%, with a single leading assignee accounting for 45 of those on its own. Filing counts drop sharply after that, falling to 10 records at fifth place and 4 at tenth, which means most other named assignees appear only a handful of times. Anyone scoping competitors in this space should treat the top five as the parties most likely to hold blocking prior art, and treat everyone below tenth place as a long tail of occasional filers.
Filing ran from 22 records in 2017 up to a peak of 23 in 2018, then declined from 21 in 2021 to 16 in 2024, a 24% drop over that three-year span. That is the most recent period the dataset treats as complete. Numbers for 2025 and 2026 are lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual falloff in filing, so they should not be read as a continuation of the decline until later data confirms it.
Water and wastewater treatment (IPC class C02F) appears in 67.3% of the 248 records, and separation processes (B01D) in 45.2%, making treatment-system and membrane-separation framing the dominant approach. Alkali-metal compound chemistry (C01D), covering salt purity and crystallisation, sits at 27.0%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%, which reflects how often these process steps are claimed together rather than in isolation.
The classes furthest from the core treatment and separation activity carry the lowest shares: battery-adjacent lithium recovery (H01M) at 4.4% of records, metal extraction from residual brine (C22B) at 4.0%, and gasification-integrated evaporator systems (C10J) at 3.6%. Catalysis-assisted scaling control (B01J) and non-metallic by-product recovery (C01B) also sit under 7%. These lower shares indicate less occupied claim space relative to the core water-treatment framing, though a low share alone does not guarantee patentability — it means fewer existing claims to design around, not none.
By receiving office, China leads with 84 of the tracked filings, followed by the United States at 38 and WIPO PCT filings at 21. Europe and India each show 14, and Australia 12. The gap between China and every other jurisdiction is large enough that any China-market entry or freedom-to-operate review in this field should start with Chinese-office prior art before extending to other regions.
Research Brine Concentration and Salt Recovery in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole brine concentration and salt recovery corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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.