Industrial Waste Heat Recovery Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing activity has plateaued, not grown. Filings peaked in 2022 at 20 and the run rate since has not pushed past that level, suggesting the field is consolidating around known approaches rather than expanding into new ones.
- This is a steam-and-cycle story more than a materials story. F01K (steam & thermal power plants) touches 182 of 185 records, while C09K (working-fluid materials) appears in only 14 — the corrosion-resistant recuperator and heat-exchanger material claims are thin relative to the cycle-design claims around them.
- The named assignees have gone quiet in the latest year. Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum, including the most cited filers, shows zero filings in the latest year — a pattern consistent with the usual 18-month publication lag rather than a real stop.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (11) — 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 185 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 185 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and industrial heat recovery language with claims touching ORC working fluids, high-temperature heat exchanger materials, corrosion-resistant recuperators or recovery materials generally. The controlling IPC classes are C09K5/04 (heat transfer materials), F28F21 (heat exchanger construction materials) and F01K25 (engines using specific working fluids), which together anchor the search to hardware and materials claims rather than plant-level process patents.
The technology composition skews heavily toward steam and thermal power plant architecture (F01K) with materials-specific filings (C09K) a much smaller slice, and geothermal (F24T) and drilling (E21B) subclasses showing this field overlaps substantially with oilfield and geothermal heat harvesting rather than standing apart from it.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 185-family corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filings plateaued after 2022
Volume rose from 7 in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2022, and the midpoint-year comparison shows no clear growth beyond that peak — flat-to-declining activity rather than an expanding field. The most recent year is necessarily undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
F01K dominates; materials classes are thin
F01K appears in 182 of 185 records, making this overwhelmingly a cycle-and-plant classification set. C09K, the class most directly tied to working-fluid and recovery-material composition, appears in only 14 records — a strong signal that dedicated materials claims are a minority activity inside a field otherwise built around system and cycle design.
Shares are the percentage of the 185 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Industrial Waste Heat Recovery Advanced Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about industrial waste heat recovery advanced materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records and a representative filing
WO2011159415A3 — Turbine inlet condition controlled organic rankine cycle
A pressure sensor measures ORC working fluid pressure ahead of a radial inflow turbine while a temperature sensor measures working fluid temperature at the same point. A controller uses both readings to determine the superheated temperature of the working fluid ahead of the turbine, then adjusts pump speed and, where fitted, the pitch of variable inlet guide vanes to hold that superheated condition.Filed by General Electric Company; publication dated 2013-11-07.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6986251B2 | Organic rankine cycle system for use with a reciprocating engine | 106 |
| 2 | US11187212B1 | Methods for generating geothermal power in an organic Rankine cycle operation during hydrocarbon production b… | 69 |
| 3 | US20140174084A1 | Processes and compositions for organic rankine cycles for generating mechanical energy from heat | 59 |
| 4 | US20140026574A1 | Multiple organic rankine cycle system and method | 58 |
| 5 | US9297367B2 | Combined geothermal and solar thermal organic rankine cycle system | 56 |
| 6 | WO2005049975A1 | Organic rankine cycle system with shared heat exchanger for use with a reciprocating engine | 55 |
| 7 | WO2016039655A1 | System and method for recovering waste heat energy | 47 |
| 8 | US11359612B1 | Systems and methods for generation of electrical power in an organic rankine cycle operation | 46 |
| 9 | US11293414B1 | Systems and methods for generation of electrical power in an organic rankine cycle operation | 46 |
| 10 | WO2014117156A1 | Organic rankine cycle system with lubrication circuit | 39 |
Citation counts favour older records in any searched corpus — read these as markers of influence on later filings, not as current state of the art.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where this field stands
Three signals worth weighing before deciding where to file or where to challenge.
Growth has stalled at the top
The rise from 7 filings in 2017 to a 2022 peak of 20 looked like early-stage growth. Comparing against the midpoint shows no further climb, which reads as a field settling into known approaches rather than one still expanding its claim territory.
Cycle design outweighs materials claims
Nearly every record in this corpus touches F01K (steam & thermal power plant systems), while only 14 touch C09K, the subclass most tied to working-fluid and recovery-material composition. Materials-specific protection is the smaller, less contested slice of this landscape.
US filing leads, but PCT and EPO are close behind
With 77 US-directed filings against 34 at the EPO and 34 via WIPO's PCT route, applicants are pursuing US protection first but keeping international options open at similar rates — worth checking both routes when searching for blocking prior art.
Co-filing is limited and concentrated
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, and the strongest pairs top out at 4 shared filings. Most patenting activity here is done by single assignees rather than through formal joint-filing arrangements.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to industrial waste heat recovery advanced materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space
Recent-year momentum figures show every tracked assignee, including the most historically active filers, at zero filings in the latest year — a pattern that lines up with the ~18-month publication lag rather than a sudden industry exit.
ElectraTherm Inc
Appears in the strongest co-assignee pairs in the dataset, filing jointly with named inventors on multiple occasions — a pattern suggesting a small, stable inventing team behind its ORC hardware claims.
Ice Thermal Harvesting LLC
Tracked among the assignees with measurable recent-year activity in this corpus, its filings sit alongside geothermal and oilfield-adjacent subclasses (F24T, E21B) rather than pure materials claims.
General Electric Company
Holds the representative filing in this dataset, WO2011159415A3, covering closed-loop turbine-inlet temperature control for ORC systems — a controls-and-cycle claim rather than a materials composition claim.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ICE THERMAL HARVESTING LLC | 0 | — |
| Nuovo Pignone S.r.l. | 0 | — |
| ELECTRATHERM INC | 0 | — |
| Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) | 0 | — |
| UTC Power Corporation | 0 | — |
| Eaton Corporation | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Chemours FC, LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether you are filing, defending, or scouting for licensing targets.
Check the materials subclasses first
With C09K appearing in only 14 of 185 records, a focused freedom-to-operate check on working-fluid and recuperator-material claims will be faster and likely turn up fewer blocking patents than a full-cycle search.
Run a freedom-to-operate check →Watch for the publication-lag catch-up
Every tracked assignee shows zero filings in the latest year; expect a batch of filings dated to this period to surface as the ~18-month publication lag closes. Re-run this search in 6-12 months.
Set a monitoring alert →Look past the most-cited records
The most-cited patents in this corpus date to earlier filing years and reflect influence on the field, not necessarily current commercial relevance. Cross-check citation leaders against recent filing activity before treating them as state of the art.
Explore citation trends in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
This dataset identifies 185 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine organic Rankine cycle or industrial heat recovery language with claims on working fluids, heat exchanger materials, or corrosion-resistant recuperators. That count reflects a specific search string built around IPC classes C09K5/04, F28F21 and F01K25, so a broader search of general heat recovery patents would return a larger number. Families, not raw document counts, are used here because they neutralise duplicate filings across jurisdictions and continuation applications from the same invention.
Filing activity rose from 7 records in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2022, but has not exceeded that peak since, and the most recent years show a decline consistent with a maturing rather than an expanding field. Part of that recent-year drop is an artefact of publication lag — patents typically publish around 18 months after filing, so 2025 and 2026 figures will rise as more records become public. Even accounting for that lag, the absence of sustained growth beyond 2022 suggests the core cycle-design approaches are becoming settled rather than being displaced by new filing waves.
F01K, covering steam and thermal power plant systems, appears in 182 of the 185 records in this corpus, making it the dominant classification by a wide margin. C09K, the class most directly tied to working-fluid and heat-transfer material composition, appears in only 14 records, and F28F21, covering heat exchanger construction materials, is part of the search definition but not separately broken out here. In practice, this means most protected intellectual property in the space covers system and cycle architecture, with dedicated materials chemistry claims occupying a much smaller and less crowded slice.
The most-cited records in this corpus come from filers including the assignee behind an early reciprocating-engine ORC system and General Electric, whose turbine-inlet-controlled ORC filing serves as the representative record for this landscape. Co-assignee data shows ElectraTherm Inc as the centre of the strongest joint-filing relationships tracked, filing repeatedly alongside the same named inventors. No single assignee shows filing activity in the most recent tracked year, which is expected given publication lag rather than evidence that these companies have stopped innovating.
The clearest opening sits in materials-specific claims — corrosion-resistant recuperator alloys, high-temperature heat exchanger coatings, and ORC working-fluid stability compositions — since the C09K subclass tied to these areas appears in only 14 of 185 records against 182 for cycle-level F01K claims. Combined geothermal-ORC material interfaces are also under-represented relative to the geothermal (F24T) and drilling (E21B) activity that otherwise overlaps heavily with this corpus. A first claim in these areas would be strongest if it specified a material composition or coating structure tied to a measurable corrosion or thermal-stability performance threshold, rather than claiming the cycle or system architecture around it.
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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.