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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/electrodialysis-advanced-materials-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Water & Environmental · Patent LandscapeElectrodialysis Advanced Materials Patent Landscape 2026
- Filing has already peaked. 2024 recorded 96 families against a 2022 midpoint of 48 — growth flattened before the most recent, still-incomplete year.
- Membrane materials outrun the process itself. C08J polymer-processing filings (116) and B01J catalysis filings (115) sit close together, showing materials-side claims now rival core electrodialysis apparatus work.
- China and the US file at near parity. 234 China filings versus 219 US filings, with EPO close behind at 183 — no single office dominates this field the way it does in many separation-tech landscapes.
1,204
Published Records
17%
Top-5 Share of All Records
+210%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
CN
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (31 records) with 2024 (96) — 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 1,204 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What this landscape covers
Electrodialysis moves ions across charged membranes under an electric field, and the patent activity tracked here sits specifically at the materials layer: ion-exchange membrane chemistry, bipolar membrane construction, anti-fouling surface treatments and monovalent-selective membranes, cross-checked against separation, water-treatment and electrolytic-production IPC classes. The corpus excludes generic desalination hardware claims that do not touch membrane material composition. 1,204 patent families fall inside this scope between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts in any trend line understate real filing activity; treat the last one to two years as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 1,204-family corpus: how filing volume has moved year on year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose from 25 in 2017 to a peak of 96 in 2024, with 2022 at 48 as the approximate midpoint. The count drops to 9 by 2026, consistent with publication lag rather than an actual collapse in filing — but the flattening was already visible before that final partial year.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B01D (separation processes) covers all but a handful of records at 1,189, confirming the search scope; the more informative split is beneath it. C02F (water treatment) leads secondary classes at 389, followed by C07C (218) and C25B electrolytic production (205), with C08J polymer processing (116) and B01J catalysis (115) close together — evidence that membrane material chemistry and downstream catalytic or electrolytic use cases are now filed almost as heavily as the separation process itself.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,204 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The documents this field cites most
Representative Filing
Electrodialysis process and bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices for silica removal
TEXOPCO, LLC
Provided are electrodialysis systems for removing silica from a desalinated water stream and methods for removing silica from a desalinated water stream. For example, described are bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices for removing silica from water comprising one or more anion exchange membranes; one or more bipolar membranes; and a pair of electrodes comprising a positive electrode and a negative electrode. Also described are electrodialysis systems comprising: one or more electrodialysis devices for the removal of dissolved ions and one or more bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices, wherein a product inlet stream of the one or more bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices comprises...Filed by TEXOPCO, LLC; published 2020-12-31.
Most-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6221225B1 | Apparatus and process for electrodialysis of salts | 196 |
| 2 | US4024043A | Single film, high performance bipolar membrane | 173 |
| 3 | US20110203929A1 | Recovery of lithium from aqueous solutions | 127 |
| 4 | US5240579A | Electrodialysis reversal process and apparatus with bipolar membranes | 117 |
| 5 | US4871431A | Apparatus for the removal of dissolved solids from liquids using bipolar membranes | 104 |
| 6 | US6004445A | Electrochemical methods for recovery of ascorbic acid | 83 |
| 7 | US5198086A | Electrodialysis of salts of weak acids and/or weak bases | 82 |
| 8 | US4584077A | Process for recovering sodium carbonate from trona and other mixtures of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbon… | 79 |
| 9 | US5567293A | Electromembrane processes for the treatment of kraft mill electrostatic precipitator catch | 76 |
| 10 | US6017433A | Desalting aqueous streams via filled cell electrodialysis | 75 |
Citation counts reflect age as much as importance — older bipolar-membrane and electrodialysis-reversal patents accumulate citations simply by being available longer inside this searched set.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Four read-outs from the trend, the IPC split and the citation table, translated into what they change for someone deciding where to file next.
Filing Momentum
96 in 2024 vs 48 in 2022
peak year vs midpoint
Growth flattened before the data even thins out
The doubling from 2022 to 2024 is real filing growth, not an artefact — but the fact that 2024 is the peak, with no later year approaching it even accounting for lag, suggests the field is past its fastest expansion phase rather than still accelerating.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Claim Layering
C08J 116 · B01J 115
polymer & catalysis filings
Materials claims now rival process claims
Polymer processing and catalysis subclasses sit almost level with each other in filing count, well below C02F and C07C but far from negligible — membrane chemistry and surface treatment are being claimed as heavily as many core process steps.
IPC composition
Prior Art Depth
Top cite: 196
US6221225B1
Bipolar membrane fundamentals are locked down early
The most-cited records are apparatus and bipolar-membrane patents from the 1970s through 2011 — anyone claiming basic bipolar membrane construction or reversal-process apparatus is filing directly over dense, decades-old prior art.
Citation ranking
Filing Geography
CN 234 · US 219 · EP 183
top receiving offices
No single office dominates
China leads but only narrowly over the US, with Europe close behind and Japan and WIPO both active — a genuinely multi-jurisdiction field where a single-country filing strategy leaves real exposure.
Receiving office counts
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electrodialysis advanced materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Co-filing patterns
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Yibin Sililaya Group Co., Ltd. | Yibin Haixiang Chemical Co., Ltd. | 24 |
| Yibin Sililaya Group Co., Ltd. | Yibin Sililaya Co., Ltd. | 24 |
| Yibin Haixiang Chemical Co., Ltd. | Yibin Sililaya Co., Ltd. | 24 |
| Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology (RIST) | POSCO Holdings Inc. | 19 |
| Solvay SA | Électricité de France (EDF) | 17 |
| Tokuyama Corporation | Daio Paper Corporation | 3 |
| Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology (RIST) | Pohang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. (POSCO) | 3 |
| Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) | SHUKLA RISHI | 2 |
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus, and the three strongest are all variants of the same Yibin-based group filing jointly — co-assignment is otherwise rare, meaning most families here are filed by a single entity rather than through joint ventures.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where activity has stalled
Recent-year momentum tells a different story from cumulative filing counts: several of the most established names show no filings at all in the latest tracked year.
Momentum Signal
0 in latest year
across six tracked assignees
Established filers have gone quiet
Solvay SA (Solvay), Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) (ADM), Tokuyama Corporation and BASF SE (BASF) all show zero filings in the latest year, alongside a matched pair from POSCO's research and holding entities that each register a -100% year-on-year drop.
Recent-year momentum
Regional Cluster
3 linked entities, 24 co-filings each
Yibin group
A single regional cluster drives most co-filing
Yibin Sililaya Group Co., Ltd., Yibin Haixiang Chemical Co., Ltd. and Yibin Sililaya Co., Ltd. form the three strongest co-assignee pairs in the dataset, each pairing appearing 24 times — a tightly linked industrial cluster rather than a broad collaboration network.
Co-assignee pairs
Filing Concentration
1,204 families, 10 co-filed pairs
corpus-wide
Most activity is single-assignee
With only 10 co-assignee pairs against 1,204 total families, the overwhelming majority of filings in this field are made by one entity alone — joint development filings are the exception, not the norm.
Assignee ranking
Recent-year momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Solvay SA | 0 | — |
| Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) | 0 | — |
| Tokuyama Corporation | 0 | — |
| Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology (RIST) | 0 | -100% |
| POSCO Holdings Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| BASF SE | 0 | — |
| Electrosynthesis Company, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Yibin Sililaya Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this from here
The trend and the claim map point to specific next checks rather than a single conclusion.
Watch the 2025–2026 filings closely once they clear publication lag
The apparent drop-off after 2024 is partly a reporting artefact; re-check this trend line in twelve months before concluding the field has genuinely cooled.
Explore filing trends in Eureka →Map claim scope around the top five cited patents before drafting
Bipolar membrane and reversal-process apparatus claims from the citation table sit over decades of prior art — a freedom-to-operate check against these specific documents is cheaper than a rejection later.
Run a claim comparison in Eureka →Treat the quiet incumbents as a signal, not an absence
Zero recent filings from established names like Solvay or BASF may mean a pivot away from this exact claim scope, not withdrawal from the field — worth confirming against their broader portfolios.
Track assignee portfolios in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about this landscape
The most-cited documents in this corpus are older apparatus and bipolar-membrane patents, led by US6221225B1 on electrodialysis apparatus and process with 196 citations, and US4024043A on single-film bipolar membrane construction with 173. These are foundational rather than current-generation filings, so citation count here signals influence on the field's baseline chemistry, not who is most active today. For present-day activity, recent-year filing momentum by assignee is a better guide than cumulative citations.
Filing rose from 25 records in 2017 to a peak of 96 in 2024, but growth had already flattened by the 2022 midpoint of 48, well before the peak year. The sharp drop shown for 2025 and 2026 is expected, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so those final years are undercounted rather than genuinely empty. The honest read is a field that grew steadily through the early 2020s and has plateaued, not one still accelerating.
China leads with 234 filings, narrowly ahead of the United States at 219, with the European Patent Office close behind at 183. Japan (110), WIPO/PCT (100) and Canada (66) all show meaningful activity as well, which means this is a genuinely multi-jurisdiction field rather than one concentrated in a single office. A filer relying on a single-country strategy in this space is likely leaving real exposure on the table.
US20200406194A1, assigned to TEXOPCO, LLC, covers electrodialysis systems that combine standard electrodialysis devices with bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices specifically for removing silica from a desalinated water stream, using anion exchange membranes, bipolar membranes and a defined electrode pair. It is a representative filing rather than the single blocking patent in this space — the claim scope is tied to the silica-removal process integration, not to bipolar membrane construction generally. Anyone working outside that specific silica-removal stream configuration has meaningfully more room than someone replicating it directly.
The IPC composition shows heavy filing in core separation (B01D) and water treatment (C02F), with materials-adjacent classes like polymer processing (C08J, 116 records) and catalysis (B01J, 115 records) still well below that density. Specific under-claimed pockets include monovalent-selective membrane surface grafting, anti-fouling coatings tuned for silica-rich feeds, and lithium-selective electrodialysis membranes, none of which show the same filing depth as bipolar membrane apparatus claims. These are areas where a well-drafted first claim has room to stand rather than compete against decades of dense prior art.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Electrodialysis Advanced Materials covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.