Solid Desiccant Dehydration Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- Five filers hold 84.8% of the field. 117 of 138 records in scope sit with the top five assignees, leaving little room for a new entrant to build a broad position without licensing around them.
- Filing activity is rebuilding, not new. After a 2017 peak of 20 filings, activity thinned, then grew 400% from 2021 to 2024 (1 to 5 filings) as thermal-swing and CO2-capture-adjacent claims re-entered the pipeline.
- Separation and fuels classes dominate together. B01D and C10L co-occur across most of the corpus (83.3% and 54.3% of 138 records respectively), pointing to dehydration claims drafted jointly with downstream fuel-gas conditioning.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1 records) with 2024 (5) — 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 138 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent activity at the intersection of solid desiccant dehydration, molecular sieve dehydration, and adsorption dehydration, narrowed to filings that also address operational specifics such as bed regeneration cycles, adsorbent attrition, thermal swing adsorption, water loading capacity, regeneration gas coolers, or switching valve sequences. That combination excludes generic desiccant chemistry claims and keeps the corpus focused on process and equipment engineering for natural gas and NGL dehydration trains.
138 published records fall within scope across the 2015-2026 coverage window, with the ranking built on patent families rather than raw document counts so that continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction copies of the same invention do not inflate any single assignee's position.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 138-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A 2017 peak, a quiet middle, then renewed growth
Filings peaked at 20 in 2017, the busiest year in the window, then fell before rebuilding: 2021 to 2024 shows +400% growth (1 to 5 filings). 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent years should not be read as a slowdown.
Separation processes dominate, fuels classes follow closely
B01D (separation processes) appears in 83.3% of the 138 records in scope, and C10L (fuels) in 54.3%, confirming that most dehydration claims are drafted alongside fuel-gas conditioning rather than as standalone adsorption chemistry. B01J (catalysis-adjacent processes) and F25J (gas liquefaction) sit well behind at 15.9% and 13.8%, marking smaller but active claim territories.
Shares are the percentage of the 138 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Solid Desiccant and Molecular Sieve Dehydration with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about solid desiccant and molecular sieve dehydration and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative recent filing
System and method of regulating a temperature of a CO2 capture vessel during thermal swing adsorption using an inter-exchanger (US20240058742A1)
A capture vessel is configured to capture carbon dioxide according to a thermal swing adsorption (TSA) process comprising a cyclical CO2 capture stage, a regeneration stage, and a cooling stage. Capture media inside the vessel adsorb CO2 from an exhaust gas during capture, producing an N2 stream that exits the vessel. An inter-exchanger thermally coupled to the capture media manages vessel temperature across the cycle stages.Filed by Enhanced Energy Group LLC, published 2024-02-22 — illustrates how thermal-swing dehydration claims are now being drafted around CO2-capture vessel thermal management rather than gas dehydration alone.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5089034A | Process for purifying natural gas | 119 |
| 2 | US20170056814A1 | Apparatus and System For Combined Temperature and Pressure Swing Adsorption Processes Related Thereto | 40 |
| 3 | US20170056813A1 | Apparatus and System for Swing Adsorption Processes Related Thereto | 38 |
| 4 | US6340433B1 | Water purification using titanium silicate membranes | 38 |
| 5 | US10124286B2 | Apparatus and system for swing adsorption processes related thereto | 29 |
| 6 | US10080991B2 | Apparatus and system for swing adsorption processes related thereto | 29 |
| 7 | US20180056235A1 | Swing Adsorption Processes Using Zeolite Structures | 28 |
| 8 | US20180056229A1 | Apparatus and System for Swing Adsorption Processes Related Thereto | 27 |
| 9 | US10080992B2 | Apparatus and system for swing adsorption processes related thereto | 24 |
| 10 | US20170056810A1 | Apparatus and System for Swing Adsorption Processes Related Thereto | 19 |
Citation counts favour older records in any searched corpus and should be read as a signal of influence within this dataset, not as a measure of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the concentration and citation data signal
Reading the ranking and citation tables together points to a field where a handful of incumbents built broad early positions, and later filings compete for narrower operational claims around their patents.
The field is tightly held at the top
117 of the 138 records in scope belong to just five assignees, with the leader alone accounting for 65 records. A new filer entering broad thermal-swing or bed-regeneration claim territory is likely to run into prior art from one of these five.
Activity is rebuilding after a lull
Filings dropped after the 2017 peak of 20, then grew from 1 in 2021 to 5 in 2024. That growth tracks renewed interest in thermal swing adsorption tied to CO2 capture applications rather than a return to conventional gas dehydration filing volumes.
One foundational patent anchors the citation graph
US5089034A on natural gas purification is cited 119 times within this corpus, well ahead of the next tier of records in the high 30s to low 40s. High citation counts here mark foundational process patents, not necessarily current filing activity.
Filing is concentrated in a few jurisdictions
The United States leads with 40 filings, followed by Australia (18), WIPO/PCT (16), Canada (15) and Europe (13), with a smaller but notable presence in Malaysia (7). That spread suggests LNG and NGL-producing regions are the primary filing targets alongside the US.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solid desiccant and molecular sieve dehydration, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ground, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders sit close together at the top, with three inventor-named entries also appearing repeatedly as co-assignees, suggesting a small technical team behind several of the leading filings.
One filer holds nearly half the corpus
The leading assignee's 65 records represent close to half of all 138 records in scope, built primarily on swing-adsorption apparatus and process claims that recur across the most-cited records in this dataset.
Filing drops sharply after the top five
By tenth place, assignee counts have fallen to single digits, and the top 10 combined account for 100% of the 138 records in scope, meaning no meaningful filing activity exists outside these ranked entities.
A small inventor network drives several filings
Three named individuals appear as co-assignees on 9 shared filings each, indicating a tight technical collaboration behind a meaningful slice of the corpus rather than filings spread across independent inventors.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company | 0 | — |
| UOP LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Enhanced Energy Group LLC | 0 | -100% |
| OELFKE RUSSELL H | 0 | — |
| JOHNSON ROBERT A | 0 | — |
| NAGAVARAPU ANANDA K | 0 | — |
| RAMKUMAR SHWETHA | 0 | — |
| DECKMAN HARRY W | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated core and several thinner branches; the next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate or identifying open claim space.
Map claims against the top five assignees
Before drafting in thermal swing adsorption or bed regeneration cycles, check independent claims from the leading five assignees, who together hold 84.8% of the 138 records in scope.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the CO2-capture crossover
The representative 2024 filing shows dehydration claims migrating toward CO2 capture vessel thermal management; monitoring this crossover early may reveal where the next filing wave concentrates.
Set up monitoring in EurekaExplore the under-claimed branches
Switching valve sequencing, regeneration gas cooling and adsorbent attrition mitigation show thinner claim density than the core separation classes and may offer more open drafting room.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
Within this 138-record dataset, filing is heavily concentrated: the top five assignees together hold 84.8% of all records, and the single leading assignee accounts for 65 records on its own. By the tenth-ranked assignee, counts have dropped to single digits, and the top ten combined cover 100% of the records in scope. This means nearly all documented activity sits with a small group of companies rather than being spread across many independent filers.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 20 records and declined afterward, but the most recent complete years show renewed growth: filings rose from 1 in 2021 to 5 in 2024, a 400% increase. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear low but are not yet reliable indicators of a slowdown, since patent publication typically lags filing by about 18 months. Read the last one to two years of any trend chart as incomplete rather than declining.
Most records combine separation process claims (IPC class B01D, 83.3% of records) with fuel-gas conditioning claims (C10L, 54.3%), indicating that dehydration equipment is usually claimed alongside downstream fuel-gas handling rather than in isolation. Smaller but active clusters exist in catalytic and physical processes (B01J, 15.9%) and gas liquefaction (F25J, 13.8%). Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should not be summed.
Based on the IPC composition of this corpus, branches like regeneration gas cooler design, switching valve sequencing, and adsorbent attrition mitigation show comparatively thin claim density relative to the dominant separation and fuels classes. Steam trap integration (F16T) and hydrocarbon oil co-processing (C10G) each appear in under 2% of the 138 records, suggesting these operational details are rarely the focus of an independent claim. These are reasonable areas to search further before assuming freedom to operate, since thin coverage in a landscape search is a starting signal, not a guarantee.
The most-cited record, US5089034A on a process for purifying natural gas, has 119 citations within this corpus, well ahead of the next tier of records which sit in the high 30s to low 40s. High citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to reflect foundational, older filings rather than current commercial importance, so this patent is best treated as an influence marker for later swing-adsorption process design rather than a live competitive threat by itself. Anyone drafting around thermal or pressure swing adsorption for gas purification should still review it given its citation weight.
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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.