Produced Water Treatment Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Filings peaked in 2018 at 8 records and have not returned to that level since, with the 2022 midpoint at 6 — a flat-to-declining trend rather than a growing one.
- China dominates the receiving-office split with 33 of the tracked filings against 2 each at the EPO and USPTO, meaning most of the documented claim activity sits inside Chinese examination practice.
- C02F carries 36 of 39 records leaving separation-hardware classes like B04C, B03C and C10G with only a handful of filings apiece — a sign of thin claim coverage outside core water-chemistry approaches.
What this landscape covers
This review tracks 39 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine produced water, oilfield water or frac water treatment language with oil-water separation, reinjection, desalination or reuse claims under core water-treatment and separation IPC codes. The search string deliberately pairs title-level treatment terminology with claim-level processing concepts, so the set is narrow and skews toward records where separation or reinjection is the actual invention, not a passing mention.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in the trend line is undercounted and should not be read as a drop-off on its own. The dataset is small enough that a handful of filings from a single group can move the yearly count noticeably, which is worth keeping in mind when comparing any two years.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 39 families: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how it splits across the IPC subclasses that make up the search.
A peak in 2018, no clear recovery since
Filings ran from zero in 2017 to a peak of 8 in 2018, settled to 6 at the 2022 midpoint, and reach 2 in 2026 — a partial year. Read together, the shape is flat-to-declining rather than a growth curve, and the small base size means later years can shift with just a few additional filings once they publish.
Concentrated in water treatment, thin everywhere else
C02F (water and wastewater treatment) accounts for 36 of the 39 records, effectively defining the set. B01D (separation processes) and E21B (well drilling) each contribute a handful, while B04C (cyclone separators), C10G (hydrocarbon refining), B03C (magnetic/electrostatic separation) and C10L (fuels) each register only one or two records — a sign that hardware-specific separation mechanisms are lightly claimed relative to the process-level water chemistry that dominates the corpus.
Shares are the percentage of the 39 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Produced Water Treatment Technology Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about produced water treatment technology landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited prior art in this set
Apparatus of produced water treatment, system and method of using the apparatus, and method of water reuse by using the same
An apparatus of produced water treatment, to be adopted in an in-situ recovery method of producing bitumen from oil sand, the apparatus capable of removing the oil from produced water, the produced water of being left by separating the bitumen from bitumen-mixed fluid having been recovered from the oil sand, the apparatus having: a vessel for receiving the produced water; a submerge type filtration membrane module, installed in the vessel, for filtering the produced water in the condition of the membrane being submerged in the produced water; and a bubble generator for generating bubbles to be forwarded toward the submerged filtration membrane in the produced water.Filed by Toy Engineering Corporation, published 2011-04-16 — predates the main filing window tracked here but establishes submerged-membrane, bubble-assisted architecture referenced by later oil-sand and bitumen produced-water filings.
View full filing| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20160341024A1 | Systems and methods for subsea fluid phase separation | 17 |
| 2 | CN114426321A | 一种油田采出水管式电絮凝破乳装置及方法 | 10 |
| 3 | CN111825265A | 油田采出水处理方法 | 10 |
| 4 | CN111217462A | 一种油田采出水处理高效除油沉降罐 | 5 |
| 5 | CN212198602U | 油田采出水处理中的油水分离装置 | 4 |
| 6 | CN112759024A | 多级无压损油田采出水压力气浮除油设备 | 3 |
| 7 | CN213680253U | 一种具有破乳功能的气旋浮油田采出水处理装置 | 3 |
| 8 | CN214457410U | 一种用于油田采出水处理的高效气浮除油罐 | 2 |
| 9 | CN211546178U | 一种油田化学驱驱油采出水用的多级环流浮选柱及处理系统 | 2 |
| 10 | CN211688382U | 一种油田采出水处理装置 | 2 |
Citation counts are drawn from within the searched corpus and favour older, longer-indexed records; treat them as a signal of influence rather than current importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the filing trend, IPC split and citation table are read together.
Activity has not grown since its 2018 peak
The trend runs from zero in 2017 to a high of 8 in 2018, back down to 6 by 2022, and 2 so far in 2026. Even allowing for publication lag understating the latest year, this is a mature filing pattern rather than an accelerating one — new entrants are not pushing volume up.
Examination activity is overwhelmingly domestic Chinese practice
China accounts for 33 of the tracked filings, with the EPO, USPTO, Canada and WIPO's PCT route making up the remainder in single digits. Anyone benchmarking freedom-to-operate outside China is working with a noticeably thinner prior-art base in this specific search window.
Water-chemistry claims dominate; separation hardware is thin
C02F carries the overwhelming majority of records, while cyclone separation (B04C), magnetic/electrostatic separation (B03C) and refining-adjacent classes (C10G) each hold only one or two filings. That imbalance suggests hardware-specific separation mechanisms have fewer defended positions than the chemistry-led approaches.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to produced water treatment technology landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where momentum has cooled
The assignee set is led by large state-affiliated oil and gas groups and their regional subsidiaries, with a long tail of specialist water-treatment and engineering firms filing once or twice. Co-assignee pairs are rare — 9 pairs across the set — and mostly link a parent group to one of its regional oilfield branches.
Collaboration is mostly intra-group, not cross-company
The strongest co-assignee links pair a national oil group with its own regional subsidiary — a Southwest, Northwest or Northeast oil and gas branch — rather than partnerships between independent companies. This points to internal technology transfer between headquarters R&D and field operations rather than an open collaboration pattern.
No assignee shows growth in the most recent filing year
Every assignee in the recent-momentum view, including the largest state oil group, registers zero filings in the latest tracked year, with year-over-year change flat or negative. Given publication lag, this likely understates 2025-2026 activity, but it confirms none of the leading filers accelerated through the period covered.
A long tail of regional and specialist filers
Beyond the handful of large oil and gas groups, the roster includes regional engineering firms, water-treatment specialists and single-subsidiary filers each contributing one or a few records. This is typical of a mature, narrowly-scoped technology area rather than one with an emerging dominant player.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) | 0 | -100% |
| Senuo Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| PetroChina Company Limited | 0 | — |
| Shaanxi Changxing Petroleum Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Subsea IP UK Limited | 0 | — |
| Kemira Oyj (Finland) | 0 | — |
| Qingdao Yining Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Shaanxi Yinhe Oil & Gas Engineering Technology Service Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
This landscape is a starting point for scoping, not a substitute for a full freedom-to-operate check on a specific design.
Check claim scope on the thin IPC branches
B04C, B03C and C10G each carry only one or two records in this set. Before assuming open white space, pull the full claim text on those records rather than relying on subclass counts alone.
Explore in EurekaTrack the state-group subsidiaries separately
Because co-assignee pairs mostly link a parent group to its regional branches, treating a large group's filings as one block can hide which subsidiary actually holds a given claim.
Run an assignee searchRe-run the trend once later years settle
Publication lag means 2025 and 2026 counts will rise as more filings publish. A re-check in 12 months will give a more reliable read on whether the flat trend is continuing.
Set up a monitoring alertCommon questions about produced water treatment patents
Within this dataset, filing activity concentrates among large national oil and gas groups and their regional subsidiaries, rather than independent specialist companies. The co-assignee pattern shows headquarters-level groups filing jointly with their own oilfield branches more often than with outside partners. A full ranking by family count is rendered in the assignee table on this page rather than summarised here, since the exact order can shift as more 2025-2026 filings publish.
Based on the tracked filings, activity peaked in 2018 at 8 records, fell to 6 by the 2022 midpoint, and stands at 2 so far in 2026. That is a flat-to-declining pattern rather than a growth curve, though the most recent year is understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Anyone reading this trend for planning purposes should treat the last one to two years as provisional.
China accounts for the large majority of receiving-office activity in this set, with 33 of 39 filings, while the EPO and USPTO each hold 2 and Canada and the PCT route hold 1 each. This means most of the documented claim language and examination history sits inside Chinese patent practice specifically, and prior-art searches focused only on US or European filings will see a much thinner picture of this field.
Relative to the dominant C02F water-treatment cluster, which carries 36 of 39 records, subclasses covering cyclone separation, magnetic or electrostatic separation, and refining-adjacent water reuse each hold only one or two filings. That imbalance suggests hardware-specific separation mechanisms and refining-adjacent reuse routes have less dense claim coverage than general water-chemistry treatment approaches, though a thin IPC count is not proof of open white space until the actual claims are checked.
This landscape was built using a search string that pairs produced-water and oilfield-specific terminology with oil-water separation, reinjection, desalination and reuse concepts, which narrows the set to inventions tied specifically to oilfield operations rather than municipal or industrial wastewater generally. The presence of E21B (well drilling) among the IPC codes reflects that oilfield-specific link, distinguishing this set from a broader wastewater treatment search that would not carry well-related classifications at all.
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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.