Electrodialysis Wastewater Patents: Who Leads, Trends 2026
- Filing has already peaked. 2022 is the high-water mark at 17 filings, and the trend since is flat to declining — this is not a technology still accelerating into a land grab.
- The core claim space is concentrated in two IPC subclasses. B01D (separation) and C02F (water treatment) cover the large majority of the 142 families, while polymer, electrolytic and fermentation-adjacent classes remain thin.
- The most-cited prior art predates the current filing wave. The heaviest-cited records center on purified-water-from-saltwater and ion-exchange-membrane patents, meaning influence in this corpus still traces back to older foundational filings.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 142 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 142 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine electrodialysis or electrodialysis-reversal claims with wastewater desalination, brine concentration, nutrient recovery or industrial effluent applications, filtered to the core separation and water-treatment IPC classes (B01D61/44, C02F1/469, C02F1/46). It is a narrow, application-defined slice of the broader membrane-separation art rather than a survey of electrodialysis in general.
Filing activity is distributed across a handful of receiving offices with the United States, Europe and the PCT route carrying most of the volume, and China, Australia and Israel forming a secondary tier. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025-2026 counts in the trend chart are undercounts rather than a genuine drop-off — treat the last one to two data points as provisional.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 142 families: when the claims were filed, and which IPC subclasses they sit in. Read together, they show a field that built out its core separation and water-treatment art early and has not meaningfully diversified since.
Filings by year
Activity rose from 3 filings in 2017 to a peak of 17 in 2022, then eased off. With the most recent years understated by publication lag, the honest reading is a mature filing curve rather than a growth curve.
IPC subclass distribution
B01D and C02F between them anchor the large majority of records, confirming this is fundamentally a separation-process and water-treatment art. C08J, C25B, C07C, B01J, C12P and D21C appear only in single digits to low double digits, marking them as adjacent rather than core.
Shares are the percentage of the 142 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Electrodialysis Wastewater Treatment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about electrodialysis wastewater treatment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records that shape this space
Electrodialysis-distillation hybrid process for recovering DMSO solvent from industrial effluent (GB2487515B)
The invention relates to the removal of the impact-sensitive and hazardous sodium azide (NaN3) salt along with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) for the recovery of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solvent present in a pharmaceutical industrial effluent generated during the manufacture of antiretroviral drugs. The wastewater cannot be directly distilled for DMSO recovery in the presence of NaN3, which could cause explosions. Moreover, disposal of the DMSO increases the chemical oxygen demand (COD) load on the effluent treatment plant (ETP). The developed process includes pretreatment of the effluent for the removal of colloidal impurities and suspended solids followed by electrodialysis using cation and an…Filed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, published 2018-05-09.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20040055955A1 | Production of purified water and high value chemicals from salt water | 132 |
| 2 | US7083730B2 | Production of purified water and high value chemicals from salt water | 127 |
| 3 | WO2004013048A2 | Production of purified water and high value chemicals from salt water | 53 |
| 4 | US20110068002A1 | Ion exchange membranes | 50 |
| 5 | US20130020259A1 | Membrane and Electrodialysis based Seawater Desalination with Salt, Boron and Gypsum Recovery | 40 |
| 6 | US20140299529A1 | Systems, Apparatus, and Methods for Separating Salts from Water | 31 |
| 7 | US20110284376A1 | Systems and techniques for electrodialysis | 29 |
| 8 | US8703831B2 | Ion exchange membranes | 27 |
| 9 | US9023902B2 | Ion exchange membranes | 25 |
| 10 | US20140183045A1 | Electrodesalination System and Method | 24 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three read-throughs from the trend, the citation table and the IPC split, aimed at where a new filing would actually land.
The wave has already crested
Filings rose from 3 in 2017 to 17 in 2022 and have not exceeded that since. Combined with publication lag understating 2025-2026, this reads as a technology that occupied its core claim space in the late 2010s and early 2020s rather than one still in a land-grab phase.
Two subclasses hold almost everything
Separation processes and water treatment classes account for the overwhelming share of records, leaving polymer processing, electrolytic production and fermentation-adjacent classes each in single or low double digits. New entrants competing head-on in B01D/C02F are filing into dense prior art.
Foundational influence sits with older salt-water purification art
The two most-cited records both concern producing purified water and high-value chemicals from salt water, and a related ion-exchange-membrane filing also ranks highly. Newer filings are building on, not displacing, this older foundational work.
Filing strategy still centers on US/EU/PCT
The United States, European Patent Office and PCT route together carry most of the volume, with China, Australia and Israel forming a distinct secondary tier. A filing strategy modeled only on the top three offices would miss where the secondary tier is active.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to electrodialysis wastewater treatment, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is open
142 families and only three identified co-assignee pairs — collaboration is the exception, not the norm, in this dataset. Recent-year momentum across the leading assignees is flat, consistent with the overall filing plateau.
Filing here is mostly solo
Only three co-assignee pairs appear across 142 families, the strongest being a university-inventor pairing and a national-lab-plus-energy-center pairing. Most organisations in this space file independently rather than through joint ventures or research partnerships.
No assignee is currently accelerating
Every one of the assignees with the strongest historical filing records shows zero filings in the latest tracked year, with at least one showing a full year-on-year drop. This matches the overall plateau in the filing trend rather than pointing to a single company pulling back.
Academic and public research bodies are active alongside industry
Universities and government research councils sit among the named assignees alongside specialist water-technology firms, a mix more typical of a still-maturing applied science than of a fully commercialised, industry-dominated field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| MAGNA IMPERIO SYST | 0 | — |
| Siemens Pte. Ltd. | 0 | — |
| University of South Carolina | 0 | — |
| Energy Exploration Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Nutrient Recovery and Upcycling Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Ghent University | 0 | -100% |
| Evoqua Water Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy, or scouting for licensing targets.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the B01D/C02F core
Given how concentrated claims are in separation and water-treatment classes, any new electrodialysis wastewater filing should be checked against the highest-cited records in those two subclasses before drafting.
Explore in EurekaMap the secondary-tier offices before committing a filing budget
China, Australia and Israel form a distinct second tier behind the US/EU/PCT majority; a portfolio strategy built only on the top three offices risks missing active regional filers.
Explore in EurekaWatch for renewed activity from currently dormant leading assignees
Every top assignee shows zero filings in the latest year. A sudden resumption from any of them would be an early signal worth tracking rather than assuming the field has permanently plateaued.
Explore in EurekaCommon questions about electrodialysis wastewater patents
This landscape identifies 142 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine electrodialysis or electrodialysis-reversal claims with wastewater desalination, brine concentration, nutrient recovery or industrial effluent applications. The figure is scoped to a specific IPC filter (B01D61/44, C02F1/469, C02F1/46), so a broader search on electrodialysis generally would return a larger number. Families, rather than raw publications, are used here because they neutralise duplicate filings across jurisdictions and continuation applications.
Filing activity peaked in 2022 at 17 filings and has not exceeded that level since, which points to a technology that is maturing rather than one still in an early growth phase. Because patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend chart will understate true activity and should not be read as a sharp decline. Taken together, the honest read is a plateaued filing curve rather than a growing or a collapsing one.
The most-cited records in this corpus center on producing purified water and high-value chemicals from salt water, alongside a widely cited ion-exchange-membrane filing, both originating from older, foundational work rather than recent filings. Citation counts inside a searched corpus like this one favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so high citation counts are a signal of influence, not necessarily of current commercial relevance. Newer entrants should treat these highly cited records as prior art to design around rather than as evidence of who is currently most active.
GB2487515B, assigned to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, covers a hybrid electrodialysis-distillation process for recovering dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solvent from pharmaceutical industrial effluent that also contains hazardous sodium azide and ammonium chloride. Its claims are tied specifically to that pretreatment-plus-electrodialysis sequence for DMSO recovery in the presence of those particular contaminants, so it does not broadly block electrodialysis use on other effluent streams or for other solvents. Anyone working on solvent recovery from similarly hazardous pharmaceutical effluent should review its claim scope closely; anyone working on unrelated brine or nutrient-recovery applications is less likely to be affected.
The core claim density sits heavily in the B01D (separation processes) and C02F (water treatment) subclasses, which together account for the large majority of the 142 tracked families. Adjacent areas such as polymer-based membrane formulations, electrolytic byproduct valorisation from ED brine, and selective nutrient recovery via bipolar-membrane configurations show markedly thinner coverage. These under-claimed branches are worth checking first, since filing directly into the dense B01D/C02F core means competing against the highest-cited prior art in the field.
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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.