Metal Recycling Patents: Top Companies & Filing Trends 2026
- Filing peaked in 2021 at 30 records, then fell 50% to 15 by 2024 the last year that can be read as complete before publication lag distorts the count.
- The top 5 assignees hold 31.3% of all 230 records in scope and the top 10 combined reach 51.3% — concentrated, but with a long tail of single-digit filers behind them.
- C22B metal extraction & refining covers 30.4% of records far ahead of the next largest class, meaning claim density on extraction and refining routes is the highest in the field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (30 records) with 2024 (15) — 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 230 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers patent families published between 2015 and 2026 that combine metal recycling or reclamation with technical markers such as material phase, surface layer, particle morphology, mechanical strength, material separation or recovery yield. That combination narrows the corpus to filings that go beyond collection and logistics into the metallurgical detail of how recovered metal is processed, purified and requalified for reuse.
The 230 records in scope span extraction and refining, furnace and kiln hardware, separation processes, and the analytical methods used to verify recovered material quality. Receiving-office data shows the United States, the EPO and the WIPO PCT route carrying the largest shares of filings, with India, Canada and Australia forming a secondary tier.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 230 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the technical weight of the field.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 30 in 2021, then declined to 15 by 2024 — a 50% drop over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent years understate real activity rather than confirming a continued decline.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C22B (metal extraction & refining) accounts for 30.4% of the 230 records, roughly three times the next largest class. G01N (material analysis & testing) sits at 11.7%, followed by B01J, B09B, F27B and F27D each near 9.6–10.0%, and B01D and B29B each at 7.0%. Records can carry more than one class, so these shares sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 230 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Metal Recycling & Secondary Metallurgy Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about metal recycling & secondary metallurgy patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited records
Scrap submergence device and molten metal recycling system
A scrap submergence device for mixing molten metal in a furnace may include an upper structure, a shaft extending down from the upper structure, and an impeller at a lower end of the shaft. The impeller may include a plurality of blades and a plate. Each of the plurality of blades may have a blade height and a blade radius. A ratio of a blade height to a blade radius may be approximately 0.3 to approximately 1.Filed by Novelis, published as WO2021222505A1 on 2021-11-04, this filing sits squarely in the furnace-hardware branch of the landscape (F27B/F27D) rather than in chemistry-based separation.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050100793A1 | Active metal electrolyzer | 202 |
| 2 | US20120234694A1 | Electrochemical carbon nanotube filter and method | 110 |
| 3 | US20080192897A1 | Small spot x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer | 91 |
| 4 | US20120211367A1 | Electrochemical carbon nanotube filter and method | 85 |
| 5 | US7916834B2 | Small spot X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer | 64 |
| 6 | US7608178B2 | Active metal electrolyzer | 61 |
| 7 | US20070054106A1 | Method of recycling mixed streams of ewaste (weee) | 55 |
| 8 | US7902262B2 | Method of recycling mixed streams of ewaste (WEEE) | 54 |
| 9 | US20190060834A1 | Apparatus system and method to separate brine from water | 39 |
| 10 | WO2003027203A2 | Conducting polymer for pretreatment of metallic and non-metallic surfaces | 38 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate them — read this as a signal of influence within the searched corpus, not of current commercial importance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three read-outs from the concentration, technology and momentum figures above, aimed at where a new filing would land and how crowded it already is.
The top of the field is concentrated, the rest is a long tail
The top 5 assignees combined hold 31.3% of the 230 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 51.3%. That leaves close to half the corpus spread across 80 further ranked assignees, many likely filing only once or twice — a sign that secondary metallurgy attracts opportunistic single-patent entrants alongside a handful of repeat filers.
Extraction and refining claims are the densest ground
C22B covers three times the share of records that any other single subclass does. A new filing aimed at core extraction or refining chemistry is entering the most contested part of the landscape; claims adjacent to furnace hardware (F27B, F27D) or separation processes (B01D) sit on comparatively less-crowded ground.
Activity has cooled from its 2021 peak
Filings dropped 50% from the 2021 peak of 30 to 15 in 2024, the last year that can be treated as complete. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025–2026 figures are still filling in and should not be read as confirming the decline continues.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to metal recycling & secondary metallurgy patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the openings are
The ranking below covers all 90 companies the data endpoint returns for this search — not a top-50 or top-100 cut. Momentum in the most recent year is muted across nearly every ranked assignee, which is consistent with the broader 2021-to-2024 slowdown rather than any one company pulling back.
A single leader well ahead of fifth place
The top-ranked assignee holds 23 records against 11 for the fifth-placed firm — better than a 2x gap that marks out a genuine leader rather than a crowded first tier.
Collaboration clusters around a few research-industry links
The strongest co-assignee pairing links a Sao Paulo state research foundation with a state-run technological research institute at 10 shared records, and a Chinese battery-recycling group appears twice among the strongest pairs — evidence of research-institute and intra-group filing rather than broad cross-company collaboration.
A long tail of low-volume filers
With the top 10 accounting for 51.3% of all 230 records, the remaining 80 ranked assignees share under half the corpus between them — most plausibly holding only a handful of families each.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Novelis Inc. | 1 | — |
| Metals Tech Development Company LLC | 0 | — |
| Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo | 0 | — |
| Southwire Company LLC | 0 | — |
| William Marsh Rice University | 0 | -100% |
| INST DE PESQUISAS TECNOLOGICAS DO ESTADO DE SAO PAULO SA IPT | 0 | — |
| Thermo Niton Analyzers LLC | 0 | — |
| Close the Loop Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The landscape points to where claim space is dense and where it is thin. The next step is testing a specific claim idea against the records that actually sit closest to it.
Check freedom-to-operate before drafting
With C22B carrying 30.4% of records, a new extraction or refining claim needs a close read of the most-cited filings in that class before drafting begins.
Run a freedom-to-operate checkTrack the leader's next moves
The top-ranked assignee holds nearly twice the filings of fifth place; watching its recent filings is the fastest way to anticipate where the core extraction claim space moves next.
Monitor assignee activityDraft into the under-claimed branches
Separation-furnace integration and particle-morphology verification carry lower filing density than core C22B claims, and may offer more room for a defensible first filing.
Explore white space with EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset ranks 90 assignees, with the top-ranked company holding 23 of the 230 records in scope and the fifth-placed company holding 11. The top 5 assignees combined account for 31.3% of all records, and the top 10 combined reach 51.3%, which marks a genuine leadership tier rather than an evenly spread field. Beyond the top 10, the remaining assignees each hold comparatively few records, forming a long tail of opportunistic or single-patent filers. Names in the ranking include diversified metals groups, university and public-research affiliates, and battery-recycling specialists.
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 30 in 2021, then fell to 15 by 2024 — a 50% decline over that three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year that can be treated as complete, because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the lower counts shown for 2025 and 2026 are still filling in rather than confirming an ongoing drop. Anyone reading the trend chart should treat the last two data points as provisional rather than as evidence the field is cooling further.
C22B, covering metal extraction and refining, is the largest single class at 30.4% of the 230 records in scope — roughly three times the share of any other subclass. G01N (material analysis and testing) follows at 11.7%, with B01J, B09B, F27B and F27D each sitting near 9.6-10.0%, and B01D and B29B each at 7.0%. Because a single record can be classified under several IPC subclasses, these shares sum to well over 100%, and they should be read as relative density rather than as parts of a whole.
WO2021222505A1, filed by Novelis and published in November 2021, describes a scrap submergence device for mixing molten metal in a furnace, including a specific ratio of impeller blade height to blade radius of roughly 0.3 to 1. It is a representative example of the furnace-hardware branch of the landscape rather than a chemistry-based separation or extraction claim. Anyone designing molten-metal mixing equipment for scrap recycling should treat its blade-geometry ratio as a specific parameter to check against before finalising an impeller design.
The technology composition data shows extraction and refining (C22B) far more heavily claimed than adjacent branches such as separation processes (B01D) or furnace details (F27D), each sitting at 7.0-9.6% of records. Combined with a long tail of low-volume filers outside the top 10 assignees, this suggests that claims tying furnace hardware to separation-process integration, or recovery-yield analytics to on-line material verification, are comparatively less crowded. These are not guarantees of allowability, but they are areas where the density of prior art is measurably lower than in core extraction chemistry.
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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.