Divided Wall Column Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing peaked in 2017 at 19 families and has not returned to that level since, with the midpoint year 2022 sitting at just 4 families — this is a mature, slowing filing curve rather than a growing one.
- B01D separation processes cover 174 of 175 families, but C07C acyclic/carbocyclic compounds (51) and C10G refining (19) show where dividing-wall claims get applied to specific feedstocks rather than generic column design.
- The five most-cited records include patents from 2003-2006 still cited over 50 times each, meaning the foundational control and tray-design claims are two decades old and heavily built upon.
What this landscape covers
Divided wall column (DWC) technology places two or more separation zones inside a single shell using an internal partition, replacing what would otherwise require two or three separate distillation columns. Thermally coupled distillation and the Petlyuk configuration are the underlying thermodynamic concepts that make this possible, and the patent activity in this dataset sits at the intersection of column internals, vapor/liquid split control, and the specific chemistries being separated. The search spans 175 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026, filtered to records that combine dividing-wall or heat-integrated distillation language with energy-saving, vapor-split, control-strategy or capital-cost claim elements.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years in the trend chart understate actual filing activity; treat 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional floors, not ceilings.
Filing trend and technology composition
The filing curve and the IPC spread together describe a technology that consolidated early: a small number of foundational patents accumulated heavy citation counts, filing activity peaked in the mid-2010s, and later filings increasingly attach dividing-wall claims to specific downstream chemistries rather than to the core column architecture.
A filing peak already behind us
Filings rose to 19 in 2017, the peak year in this dataset, then declined toward a midpoint of 4 in 2022. That pattern is consistent with a technology whose core mechanical and control claims were staked out in the 2015-2017 window, leaving later filers to compete on application-specific refinements.
Separation dominates, but feedstock chemistry drives differentiation
B01D appears in all but one of the 175 families, confirming this is fundamentally a separation-process dataset. The secondary clusters — C07C (51), C10G refining (19), C07D heterocyclics (15), F25J gas separation (10) and F28D heat exchange (10) — show where applicants are pairing dividing-wall claims with a named chemical system or an adjacent heat-exchange component rather than filing on the column architecture alone.
Shares are the percentage of the 175 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Divided Wall Columns and Heat Integration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about divided wall columns and heat integration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records anchor the field
US20190091600A1 — Dual-dividing wall column with multiple products
Systems and methods are provided for separating a feedstock into a plurality of separation products using dividing wall column technology that includes a plurality of dividing walls. Including a plurality of dividing walls in the column can provide reduced energy consumption and reduced equipment footprint for production of a plurality of high purity distillation products. The systems and methods can allow for separation of a large number of products from a feed while having a reduced or minimized number of liquid splits and/or vapor splits.Filed by ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, published 2019-03-28.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6551465B1 | Dividing wall column control system | 102 |
| 2 | EP0780147A2 | Regulation process of a rectification column or a thermally coupled distillation column | 63 |
| 3 | US6645350B1 | Dividing wall column fractionation tray | 61 |
| 4 | US7001490B2 | Purification of ammonia by distillation | 56 |
| 5 | US7132038B2 | Method and device for obtaining 1,3 pure butadiene from 1,3 raw butadiene by distillation | 52 |
| 6 | US20040045804A1 | Method and device for obtaining 1,3 pure butadiene from 1,3 raw butadiene by distillation | 38 |
| 7 | US5783047A | Heat integrated distillation column | 37 |
| 8 | WO2004071618A1 | Dividing wall column control system | 25 |
| 9 | US7332634B2 | Method for the continuous purification by distillation of 1,2-propylene glycol that accumulates during the sy… | 22 |
| 10 | US20140061020A1 | Devices and method for continuous distillative separation of a mixture containing one or more alkanolamine(s) | 21 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus and favour older filings; read them as a measure of influence on later claim drafting, not as a signal of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three signals matter most for anyone deciding whether to file, license around, or avoid a claim area in this space.
Foundational control claims are decades old and heavily cited
The five most-cited records in this dataset were granted between 2003 and 2006, with citation counts from 52 to 102. New filings in dividing-wall control systems and tray fractionation sit downstream of these patents; freedom-to-operate work should start there, not with recent filings.
The filing curve has been declining since 2017
Activity dropped from a peak of 19 families in 2017 to a midpoint of 4 in 2022, and the most recent year shows just 1 (partial, subject to the 18-month publication lag). This is a slowing filing curve, not a growing one — new entrants are more likely to compete on application specificity than on core architecture.
Near-total overlap on separation processes, differentiated by chemistry
Almost every family in this dataset touches B01D separation processes, but the secondary IPC clusters — C07C, C10G, C07D — show applicants attaching dividing-wall claims to named feedstocks like butadiene or ammonia purification rather than filing on generic column geometry.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to divided wall columns and heat integration, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has gone quiet
No assignee in the recent-momentum data shows filings in the latest year, consistent with the overall declining trend. Co-assignee pairs are sparse — only 10 pairs across the dataset — suggesting most filers work independently rather than through joint development programs.
Large integrated filers went quiet after early activity
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company holds the representative record in this dataset (US20190091600A1, a multi-dividing-wall configuration) but shows no filings in the most recent year, matching the broader momentum data across the tracked assignees.
The strongest co-assignee pair links an EPC firm to a public research body
Toyo Engineering Corporation and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) co-file more than any other pair in this dataset, at 6 shared families, pointing to a sustained joint development relationship rather than one-off collaboration.
Dow's filings cluster around named inventor pairs
Dow Global Technologies appears twice among the strongest co-assignee pairs, both paired with named individual inventors rather than a second corporate assignee, suggesting internally-driven filing programs rather than cross-company joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BASF SE | 0 | — |
| Toyo Engineering Corporation | 0 | — |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company | 0 | — |
| LG Chem, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Stichting Energieonderzoek Centrum Nederland (ECN) | 0 | — |
| National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) | 0 | — |
| UOP LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to two practical next steps: checking freedom-to-operate against the oldest, most-cited control patents, and scanning the under-claimed sub-areas before committing to a filing strategy.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the top-cited records
Claims in US6551465B1, EP0780147A2 and US6645350B1 anchor control-system and tray-design approaches that later filings build on; any new column control or tray design should be checked against these first.
Explore prior art in EurekaMap the white space chips against your target chemistry
Vapor split control, multi-wall product recovery and cryogenic thermal coupling show thinner claim density than the core architecture clusters — worth a closer look if your application sits in one of these.
Search white space in EurekaCommon questions about divided wall column patents
A divided wall column places a vertical partition inside a single distillation column shell, allowing it to perform the separation work of two or three conventional columns in one vessel. Because the streams share reboiler and condenser duty across what would otherwise be separate columns, the configuration reduces overall energy consumption and equipment footprint, which is the recurring claim language across this patent dataset. The thermodynamic basis is thermally coupled distillation, sometimes implemented as a Petlyuk configuration, where vapor and liquid splits between sections replace some of the reflux and reboil duty of separate columns.
The most-cited record in this dataset is US6551465B1, a dividing wall column control system cited 102 times, followed by EP0780147A2 on regulation of thermally coupled columns and US6645350B1 on dividing wall fractionation trays. These patents date from the early-to-mid 2000s and continue to anchor later filings on control strategy and tray design. Citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older patents, so treat these as measures of influence on subsequent claim drafting rather than current commercial dominance.
The filing trend in this dataset shows activity slowing rather than growing: 2017 was the peak year at 19 families, the 2022 midpoint dropped to 4, and the most recent tracked year shows just 1 filing. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the very latest year is always undercounted, so the true 2025-2026 filing rate is somewhat higher than shown. Even allowing for that lag, the multi-year decline from the 2017 peak is a real pattern, not an artefact of the lag alone.
Based on the IPC composition and claim density in this dataset, vapor split ratio control algorithms, multi-dividing-wall product recovery configurations, and heat-integrated reboiler/condenser pairing show thinner claim coverage relative to the dense core clusters around basic column control and tray design. Cryogenic gas separation applications of thermal coupling (F25J) and retrofit-specific claims for adding a dividing wall to an existing column also appear underrepresented. These are starting points for a novelty search, not guaranteed open space — a full clearance search against the top-cited patents is still necessary.
US20190091600A1, filed by ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, claims a dividing wall column configuration using multiple internal dividing walls to separate a feedstock into several high-purity products while minimizing the number of liquid and vapor splits. It does not block single-dividing-wall configurations or the foundational control and tray claims covered by older patents like US6551465B1. Anyone designing a multi-wall column with reduced liquid/vapor split counts for multi-product separation should review this claim scope specifically, alongside the older foundational patents, before finalizing a design.
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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.