Capacitive Deionization Heavy Metal Removal Patent Landscape 2026
- Filing activity has already peaked. 2019 was the high-water mark at 6 filings; by the 2022 midpoint output had fallen back to 2, and the trend has not recovered since.
- The most-cited prior art is a single flow-electrode family. CN107624106A, EP3045431A1, US20180141834A1 and WO2016113139A1 all describe the same continuous-flow, single-module electrode design and dominate the citation table.
- Filing is concentrated in three offices. The United States, Europe and China together account for the majority of receiving-office activity, with India, Austria and PCT filings making up the remainder.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (1) — 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 25 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A small, mature-looking field with a narrow technical core
Capacitive deionization (CDI) for heavy metal and selective ion removal is a small corpus — 25 patent families across roughly a decade — but it is not a scattered one. Every record sits under C02F water and wastewater treatment, with a meaningful secondary presence in B01D separation processes and a smaller cluster in H01G capacitor construction. That IPC concentration tells its own story: filers are claiming the water-treatment application, not the underlying capacitor electrochemistry, which leaves the electrode-materials side comparatively open.
The filing trend peaked in 2019 and has drifted down since, with the 2022 midpoint back to 2 filings a year. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one or two years in any chart will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be — but even allowing for that lag, this is not a field in an upswing.
Filing trend and technology mix
Twenty-five families, one dominant subclass, and a filing curve that has already rolled over — the shape of the dataset matters as much as its size.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
From 2 filings in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2019, back to 2 at the 2022 midpoint and 0 in 2026 (a partial, understated final year), the curve shows a technology that had its main filing wave and has not generated a second one.
IPC subclass composition
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) covers all 25 records, B01D (separation processes) appears in 5, and H01G (capacitors) in 3 — evidence that most applicants are claiming the treatment process and module architecture rather than novel electrode or capacitor materials.
Shares are the percentage of the 25 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Capacitive Deionization Heavy Metal Removal with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about capacitive deionization heavy metal removal and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records define the reference architecture
US20180141834A1 — Single module, flow-electrode apparatus and method for continuous water desalination and ion separation by capacitive deionization
The present invention relates to a single module, flow-electrode apparatus for continuous water desalination, ion separation and selective ion removal and concentration by capacitive deionization, comprising: a first current collector, a first compartment for a flow electrode, a first ion exchange membrane (AEM, CEM), a first liquid-permeable channel next to the first ion exchange membrane, a second ion exchange membrane with a fixed charge opposite to that of the first ion exchange membrane next to the first liquid-permeable channel, a second liquid-permeable channel next to the…Abstract excerpted from the published filing; full claim scope should be read directly from the family record.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN107624106A | 通过电容去离子进行连续的水脱盐和离子分离的方法及其单模块流动电极装置 | 30 |
| 2 | EP3045431A1 | Apparatus and method for continuous water desalination and ion separation by flow electrode capacitive deioni… | 30 |
| 3 | US20180141834A1 | Single module, flow-electrode apparatus and method for continous water desalination and ion separation by cap… | 24 |
| 4 | US20200071200A1 | Electrodes for selective removal of multivalent ions through capacitive deionization | 20 |
| 5 | WO2016113139A1 | Single module, flow-electrode apparatus and method for continous water desalination and ion separation by cap… | 10 |
| 6 | CN114084940A | 活性材料、吸附电极、电容去离子装置及制备方法和应用 | 7 |
| 7 | EP3647275A1 | Flexible, one-sided membrane-electrode assemblies for use in electrochemical processes, eletrochemical module… | 7 |
| 8 | WO2020094326A1 | Electrochemical module comprising a flexible membrane-electrode assembly | 6 |
| 9 | US20190144310A1 | Flow-through electrode capacitive deionization cell | 5 |
| 10 | US11739010B2 | Electrodes for selective removal of multivalent ions through capacitive deionization | 3 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a measure of influence on later applicants, not as a signal of current commercial 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. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three figures from this dataset carry decision-relevant weight beyond the headline count.
One design idea, filed in parallel
CN107624106A and EP3045431A1 each carry 30 citations and describe the same single-module, flow-electrode concept as US20180141834A1 and WO2016113139A1. Four of the five most-cited records in this corpus trace to one continuous-flow architecture filed across jurisdictions rather than four independent inventions.
No second filing wave yet
Output climbed to 6 filings in 2019, then fell back to 2 by 2022. Given the 18-month publication lag, 2025-2026 figures will firm up somewhat, but there is no sign in the data of a renewed filing push comparable to 2019.
Claims cluster on process, not electrode chemistry
Every record in the corpus sits under C02F, and only 3 touch H01G capacitor construction. That skew suggests the crowded ground is process and module design; electrode material composition claims are comparatively thin across this set.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to capacitive deionization heavy metal removal, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum has stalled
Recent-year momentum across the tracked assignees is uniformly flat: every entity in the momentum table shows 0 filings in the latest year, and at least one shows a full year-on-year drop. That is consistent with a field past its filing peak rather than one building toward a new wave.
Foundational assignee, currently quiet
DWI – Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien holds the representative flow-electrode filing underlying much of the citation table, but shows no filings in the most recent tracked year.
National-lab research, not recent activity
Lawrence Livermore National Security appears among tracked assignees with no filings in the latest year, indicating earlier rather than ongoing activity in this specific application.
University filers with a single-year drop-off
Jiangxi University of Water Resources and Electric Power and Northwestern University both show zero filings in the latest year, with Jiangxi recording a full year-on-year decline — typical of single or few-filing academic entrants rather than sustained programmes.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| DWI – Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien e.V. | 0 | — |
| Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC | 0 | — |
| William Marsh Rice University | 0 | — |
| BRIJRAJ KUMAR MISHRA | 0 | — |
| Northwestern University | 0 | — |
| Jiangxi University of Water Resources and Electric Power | 0 | -100% |
| Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 0 | — |
| University of Shanghai for Science and Technology | 0 | — |
Reading the landscape into a filing or clearance decision
The dataset points to where claim space is dense and where it is not; turning that into a filing strategy or freedom-to-operate view means going deeper on specific families.
Map the flow-electrode family in detail
CN107624106A, EP3045431A1, US20180141834A1 and WO2016113139A1 share a common architecture and the highest citation counts in the set. Any new filing on continuous-flow, single-module CDI should be checked against this family's claims first.
Explore the family in Eureka →Probe the electrode-materials gap
With only 3 of 25 records touching H01G capacitor construction, electrode material composition for selective multivalent-ion removal looks comparatively open. Confirm that with a targeted prior-art search before drafting.
Run a white-space search in Eureka →Common questions on this landscape
Capacitive deionization (CDI) applies a low voltage across porous or flow electrodes to attract charged ions from water, and in the heavy metal removal context it is being adapted to selectively pull multivalent metal ions out of contaminated streams rather than simply desalinating water. The patent record here shows this application layered onto existing CDI hardware, with most filings claiming the water-treatment process and module design rather than a new electrochemical mechanism. Because the field is comparatively young and small, commercial deployments are still limited, and much of the disclosed art centres on the same flow-electrode module architecture.
The most-cited records in this corpus trace largely to a single flow-electrode architecture filed in parallel across the US, Europe, China and the PCT route, with DWI – Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien named on the representative US filing. Beyond that cluster, filers include a mix of universities and national laboratories, several of which show only a small number of filings each. There is no single dominant commercial assignee in this dataset — filing is spread across research institutes rather than concentrated at one company.
Not on the current data. Filings peaked at 6 in 2019, fell to 2 by the 2022 midpoint, and show 0 in the most recent (partial) year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the very last year or two will always understate true activity, but the multi-year downward drift from the 2019 peak is a real signal, not an artefact of the lag. A practitioner should read this as a field that had its main filing wave rather than one accelerating.
The IPC composition shows all 25 records under C02F water treatment but only 3 touching H01G capacitor construction, which means electrode material composition for multivalent-ion selectivity is thinly claimed relative to process and module design. Regeneration and desorption cycle control, and fouling-resistant membrane pairing for CDI stacks, are similarly under-represented in the most-cited art. These are the areas worth a targeted novelty search before drafting a new application.
US20180141834A1 describes a specific single-module, flow-electrode apparatus with paired ion exchange membranes and liquid-permeable channels for continuous desalination and selective ion removal, and it is one of the most-cited records in this space. It constrains designs that replicate its specific module and membrane-channel arrangement, but it does not by itself cover electrode material composition, regeneration cycling, or capacitor-side fabrication approaches that sit outside its claimed architecture. Any freedom-to-operate check should read the full claim set of this family rather than rely on the abstract alone.
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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.
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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.