Slag Valorization Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 64.2% of all 106 records in scope, and the top 10 combined reach 75.5% — most of the field sits with a small group of filers.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak. 2017 was the high point at 9 filings; the 2021-to-2024 span shows a -20% change, though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in given typical publication lag.
- Cement and construction dominate the claim map. C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) appears in 90.6% of the 106 records, while adjacent branches like structural components and material testing sit in single digits.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (4) — 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 106 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Slag valorization and utilization spans patents on turning steelmaking and blast-furnace residues into usable construction and agricultural inputs — steel slag aggregate, ground granulated slag for cement replacement, and carbonation treatment routes that stabilize free lime and address volume expansion. The scope also picks up leaching-behavior and hydraulic-activity claims, which sit at the boundary between materials science and environmental compliance.
The 106 records in scope run from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, filed across receiving offices led by China, the EPO and India. The picture is one of a mature but still active field: a handful of assignees built early defensible positions around carbonation-bonded construction products, while a long tail of universities and regional producers file narrower, application-specific claims.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 106 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked at 9 in 2017. The 2021-to-2024 window — the last span with enough time to be considered essentially complete — moved from 5 to 4, a -20% change. Years beyond 2024 are still under-counted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the apparent recent dip should not be read as a verdict on where the field is heading.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C04B (ceramics, cement & refractories) covers 90.6% of the 106 records, confirming cement-replacement and aggregate claims as the core of the field. Roads and pavements (E01C, 9.4%) and mortar/concrete mixing (B28C, 7.5%) are meaningful secondary branches, while agrochemical uses (A01P, A01N) and structural components (E04C) each sit under 5% — evidence that slag's use as a soil or building-component input is claimed far less densely than its use as a cement or aggregate substitute. Because records can carry multiple classes, these shares add to more than 100% of the 106-record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 106 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Slag Valorization and Utilization with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about slag valorization and utilization and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this landscape
Carbonate-bonded construction products from steel-making residues and method for making the same
This family, published as US20170073270A1 among related filings including a WO and a CA counterpart, describes carbonation-bonded construction products made from steel-making residues. It anchors the carbonation-treatment branch of this landscape and carries the highest citation count in the corpus at 64, with closely related family members also ranking among the most cited.Citation counts reflect activity inside the searched corpus, not a global count.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170073270A1 | Carbonate-bonded construction products from steel-making residues and method for making the same | 64 |
| 2 | CN103992054A | 一种碳酸化钢渣骨料及其制备方法 | 35 |
| 3 | WO2015139121A1 | Carbonate-bonded construction products from steel-making residues and method for making the same | 20 |
| 4 | WO2020188070A1 | Method for the manufacture of high-end performance steel SLAG-based building products | 16 |
| 5 | CA2942401A1 | Carbonate-bonded construction products from steel-making residues and method for making the same | 14 |
| 6 | CN110407494A | 一种具有低体积膨胀的改性钢渣沥青混合料的制备方法 | 10 |
| 7 | US10112871B2 | Carbonate-bonded construction products from steel-making residues and method for making the same | 8 |
| 8 | CN113563692A | 一种提高钢渣集料稳定性的改性剂及其制备方法 | 7 |
| 9 | CN103613346A | 全钢渣集料水泥混凝土 | 7 |
| 10 | US20190084884A1 | Carbonate-bonded construction products from steel-making residues and method for making the same | 6 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus. Older records accumulate more citations simply by being in circulation longer, so treat this as a signal of influence on the field rather than of current commercial relevance.
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 read-outs from the filing and citation data that matter for anyone deciding where to file or license next.
A small group set the terms early
With the top 5 assignees holding 64.2% of all 106 records and the top 10 reaching 75.5%, most of the addressable claim space around carbonation-bonded products and steel slag aggregate is already occupied by a small number of filers. New entrants competing head-on in this core area are filing into dense prior art rather than open ground.
Activity has eased from its peak, not collapsed
2017 remains the peak year at 9 filings, and the 2021-to-2024 span shows a -20% change. That is a cooling from an early surge, not a sign the field is closing — leaders named in the most-recent-year momentum data show 0 filings in the latest year, which is consistent with a corpus still filling in due to publication lag rather than genuine exit.
Filing activity is regionally uneven
China leads receiving offices with 25 records, ahead of the EPO at 14, India at 8, and Canada and the United States at 6 each. Any freedom-to-operate check needs to weight jurisdictions accordingly — a clearance that only covers US and EPO filings misses the majority of the documented activity.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to slag valorization and utilization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and who is not moving
The assignee ranking covers 44 companies and institutions across the 106 records in scope — not a top-50 or top-100 cut, but the full ranked list the dataset returns.
One filer holds a clear lead
The leading assignee holds 30 of the 106 records in scope, well ahead of fifth place at 3 and tenth place at 2. That gap between first place and the rest of the ranked leaders signals a single early mover in carbonation-bonded construction products rather than a genuinely crowded top tier.
Most filers appear once or twice
Beyond the leader and a handful of mid-table names, the ranking thins out quickly to universities and regional producers with small, focused filing counts. This pattern is typical of an applied-materials field: a founding assignee builds the core IP, and everyone else files narrow, use-specific claims around it.
Collaboration is limited and localized
Only two co-assignee pairs show up in the data, the strongest linking a materials-technology firm with a science-and-technology partner across 3 shared records. Co-filing is not yet a common strategy in this space — most records carry a single assignee, which favors solo licensing negotiations over joint-venture IP structures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Yara International ASA | 0 | — |
| McGill University | 0 | — |
| Carbicrete Inc. | 0 | — |
| POVAZSKA CEMENTAREN AS | 0 | — |
| Tata Steel IJmuiden BV | 0 | — |
| Lianjian (Jiangsu) Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Jiangsu Nigao Sci & Tech Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Qingdao Agricultural University | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape data points to specific next steps depending on whether you are clearing a product, scouting licensing targets, or deciding where to file.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the leader's family
With one assignee holding 30 of 106 records concentrated in carbonation-bonded construction products, any product built on that route needs a claim-by-claim review of that family before development proceeds.
Explore claim charts in EurekaScope the under-claimed branches before the leader does
Agrochemical, structural-component and material-testing uses of slag remain thin relative to the C04B core, and could offer cleaner filing space for a differentiated application claim.
Map white space in EurekaTrack the next 18 months of publications
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025-2026 dip in the trend chart is a data artifact, not a market signal — re-run this view once the lag window closes to see genuine current activity.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions about slag valorization patents
It is fairly concentrated: the top 5 assignees hold 64.2% of all 106 records in scope, and the top 10 combined reach 75.5%. The leading single assignee holds 30 records, well ahead of fifth place at 3 and tenth place at 2. That gap means most freedom-to-operate work in the core carbonation and steel-slag-aggregate space centers on a small number of families rather than a broad competitive field.
Filings peaked in 2017 at 9 and have since settled to a lower, steadier level; the 2021-to-2024 span — the most recent period considered essentially complete — shows a -20% change. Figures for 2025 and 2026 will rise as publications catch up, since publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months. Treat the apparent recent decline as incomplete data rather than a real slowdown.
Cement and construction applications dominate: the C04B subclass (ceramics, cement & refractories) covers 90.6% of the 106 records in scope. Roads and pavements (E01C) and mortar/concrete mixing (B28C) are meaningful secondary areas at 9.4% and 7.5% respectively. Agrochemical uses and structural building components each sit under 5%, marking those as comparatively under-claimed relative to the cement-replacement core.
ZA202205883A, assigned to the University of Science and Technology Beijing and dated 2022-06-29, covers steel slag aggregate used in low-carbon road concrete alongside industrial by-product gypsum and coal fly ash. Its claims center on a hydration product with a calcium-to-silicon ratio of about 1.2, generated through the synergy of fly ash, gypsum, cement and steel slag, which also improves abrasion resistance by displacing conventional sand and gravel. Anyone developing similar low-carbon road-concrete formulations using steel slag as aggregate should review this family's specific compositional claims.
China leads with 25 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 14 and India at 8; Canada and the United States each show 6. This distribution suggests that clearance and licensing strategies focused only on US or European filings will miss the majority of documented activity, since more than a third of the records in scope were filed through Chinese receiving offices.
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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.