Chemical Recycling Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 34.3% concentration at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 509 of 1,486 records in scope — a field with a genuine leader, not an even scramble.
- Filings cooled from a 2021 peak. 330 records in 2021 fell to 126 by 2024, a -62% swing, though 2025-2026 counts are still filling in as publications catch up to filing dates.
- Polymer processing dominates the claim map. C08J appears on 47.8% of all records, far ahead of hydrocarbon refining (C10G, 21.8%) and acyclic compound chemistry (C07C, 21.7%).
Filing growth compares 2021 (330 records) with 2024 (126) — 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 1,486 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset spans 1,486 published records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine chemical recycling or chemical reclamation terminology with process-engineering language — reaction medium, mass transfer, product selectivity, material separation and recovery yield. That search construction pulls in depolymerization, solvolysis, pyrolysis and gasification routes for recovering feedstock from plastic and polymer waste streams, rather than mechanical recycling alone.
Filing activity peaked in 2021 and has since declined through the last complete filing year, 2024, while receiving-office activity concentrates in the United States, WIPO/PCT filings and Europe, with meaningful volume also filed in India, Canada and Australia. The assignee ranking shows real concentration at the top alongside a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
Let an AI agent run this analysis on your own technology
Pick a task. Every answer cites the patents behind it.
Filing trends and technology composition
The two views below track when filings happened and which technical classes they carry. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, treat the final one or two years on the trend chart as undercounted rather than as evidence of a slowdown.
A 2021 peak followed by a real pullback
Annual filings rose from 20 in 2017 to a peak of 330 in 2021, then fell to 126 by 2024 — a -62% move over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures will continue to revise upward as later publications land, so the most recent bars understate true filing activity rather than confirming a genuine decline beyond 2024.
Polymer processing carries the field
C08J (polymer processing & solutions) touches 47.8% of all 1,486 records, roughly double the next two classes: C10G hydrocarbon oils and refining (21.8%) and C07C acyclic and carbocyclic compounds (21.7%). Condensation polymer chemistry (C08G, 15.9%), plastics preparation (B29B, 11.4%) and catalysis (B01J, 10.2%) form a second tier, with gasification of fuels (C10J, 7.9%) the smallest of the tracked classes. Since records can carry several IPC codes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should be read against the 1,486-record total, not against each other as a closed pie.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,486 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Chemical Recycling & Feedstock Recovery Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about chemical recycling & feedstock recovery patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this landscape
US12617919B2 — Chemical recycling of metal-containing plastics mixtures
A method of recycling plastic waste by feeding PET and a metal-containing reclaimer co-product to a chemical recycling facility, where the co-product includes plastic flakes carrying at least 0.1 weight percent metals. The claimed process depolymerizes the flakes or plastic articles in a solvolysis facility that performs methanolysis, with the plastic articles supplied in the form of compressed bales.Filed by Eastman Chemical Company, published 2026-05-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170341942A1 | Methods and systems for large scale carbon dioxide utilization from lake KIVU via a co2 industrial utilizatio… | 208 |
| 2 | US6706843B1 | Method for separating and recovering dimethyl terephthalate and ethylene glycol from polyester waste | 176 |
| 3 | US20120310023A1 | Methods of Producing Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels from Solid Plastic Wastes | 125 |
| 4 | WO2016062695A1 | Polypeptide having a polyester degrading activity and uses thereof | 99 |
| 5 | WO2014079844A1 | Method for recycling plastic products | 98 |
| 6 | WO2016146540A1 | New polypeptide having a polyester degrading activity and uses thereof | 60 |
| 7 | US20100084603A1 | Novel modified fatty acid esters and method of preparation thereof | 60 |
| 8 | US9200207B2 | Methods of producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels from solid plastic wastes | 52 |
| 9 | CN104327254A | 一种再生聚酯的制备方法 | 51 |
| 10 | WO2006093874A2 | Novel triglycerides and method of preparation thereof | 49 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on subsequent filings, not as a ranking 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.
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 numbers mean for a filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once concentration, timing and class distribution are read together.
The field has a clear leader, not a scramble
509 of the 1,486 records in scope sit with the five leading assignees, and the top 10 combined hold 46.2% (687 records). That is enough concentration that a new entrant should expect to design around a small number of dominant portfolios rather than a diffuse field, especially in solvolysis and depolymerization process claims.
Filing volume has genuinely pulled back since 2021
The three-year drop from 330 filings in 2021 to 126 in 2024 is a real decline in the last complete filing years, not an artefact of publication lag. It suggests the initial land-grab phase around chemical recycling routes has passed its most intense filing period, though 2025-2026 figures are too recent to read either way.
Polymer processing claims crowd the core, refining and synthesis trail
Nearly half of all records touch C08J polymer processing and solutions, while hydrocarbon refining (C10G) and acyclic compound chemistry (C07C) each sit near a fifth of records. Gasification of fuels (C10J) is the smallest tracked class at 7.9%, which is one signal of where claim density is lighter.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to chemical recycling & feedstock recovery patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where activity has cooled
Recent-year momentum diverges from historical volume: several of the most active historical filers show flat or declining year-on-year counts in the latest tracked year, which is consistent with the broader 2021-2024 pullback rather than a company-specific retreat.
A single assignee well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 298 records against a fifth-place figure of 43 and a tenth-place figure of 32 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a portfolio built over years of sustained filing rather than a recent surge.
Enzymatic depolymerization research runs through a tight cluster
The strongest co-assignee pairing in the dataset links a specialist recycling company with a national research institute, with a related university partner also appearing in two of the top three pairs — a sign that enzymatic and biological depolymerization work is concentrated among a small, connected group of institutional co-filers.
Recent-year filing counts have thinned across the board
Several previously active assignees show single-digit or zero filings in the latest tracked year, with year-on-year declines ranging from -40% to -100%. That pattern lines up with the aggregate 2021-2024 pullback, though the newest years are still incomplete in the data and should not be read as firms exiting the space.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Eastman Chemical Company | 6 | -40% |
| Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | 1 | -50% |
| Carbios | 0 | -100% |
| Evonik Operations GmbH | 0 | — |
| MURA TECH LTD | 0 | — |
| CARBIOS | 0 | — |
| LanzaTech Inc | 0 | -100% |
| UOP LLC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to open engineering problems as clearly as it points to who already owns claim space.
Check freedom-to-operate before scaling a solvolysis or methanolysis process
With 46.2% of records held by the ranked top 10, a new depolymerization or solvolysis process should be checked against the leading portfolios' claim scope before committing capital to pilot-to-commercial scale-up.
Run a claim search in EurekaTarget the lighter-claimed gasification and catalytic-selectivity branches
C10J gasification and catalytic selectivity control show materially lower claim density than the polymer-processing core, which is where a first-filer advantage is still available.
Explore white space in EurekaTrack the enzymatic depolymerization co-filing cluster
The tightest co-assignee pairings sit around enzymatic and biological routes; monitoring that cluster's publication activity is a leading indicator for where commercial licensing activity may surface next.
Monitor assignees in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking is concentrated at the top: the leading assignee alone holds 298 of the 1,486 records in scope, and the top five combined hold 34.3% of all records. That drop-off is steep — fifth place sits at 43 records and tenth place at 32 — so the field has one clear leader with a deep portfolio, followed by a group of active mid-tier filers and then a long tail of single-filing entrants. Anyone assessing competitive risk should focus first on the leader's specific claim scope rather than treating the field as evenly distributed.
Filing volume peaked in 2021 at 330 records and had fallen to 126 by 2024, a decline of 62% over that three-year span using the last complete filing years available. That is a genuine pullback, not a data artefact. That said, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in the dataset are still incomplete and will rise as more records publish, so they should not yet be read as confirming the decline has continued.
Polymer processing and solutions, IPC class C08J, appears on 47.8% of all 1,486 records in scope, making it by far the most heavily claimed class. Hydrocarbon oils and refining (C10G) and acyclic and carbocyclic compound chemistry (C07C) each sit close behind at roughly a fifth of records, with condensation polymer chemistry, plastics preparation and catalysis forming a second tier. Gasification of fuels is the lightest-claimed of the tracked classes, which is worth noting for anyone scouting less crowded technical ground.
US12617919B2, assigned to Eastman Chemical Company and published 2026-05-05, claims a method for chemically recycling plastic waste that includes metal-containing co-product — plastic flakes carrying at least 0.1 weight percent metals — by feeding it to a solvolysis facility that performs methanolysis, including where the input material is supplied as compressed bales. It is a recent filing, so its citation footprint is still small, but it sits squarely in the metal-contaminant separation sub-area that shows comparatively light claim density elsewhere in this dataset. Anyone processing mixed or contaminated PET streams through methanolysis should review its specific claim language closely.
The technology composition data points to gasification-route feedstock recovery (C10J, 7.9% of records) and catalytic selectivity control in mixed-waste pyrolysis as comparatively under-claimed relative to the dominant polymer-processing and refining classes. Metal-contaminant separation in mixed-plastic feedstocks is another area where claim density looks lighter, even as commercial interest in processing contaminated waste streams grows. These are read from relative claim density, not from an absence of any prior art, so a proper freedom-to-operate search is still required before filing.
Research Chemical Recycling & Feedstock Recovery Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole chemical recycling & feedstock recovery patent landscape 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.