Spent Media Regeneration & PFAS Disposal Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- One filer dominates a small field. the leading assignee holds 8 of 23 records in scope, and the top five combined account for 95.7% of all records.
- Filing already peaked and has not recovered. activity topped out at 8 filings in 2017 and the 2022 midpoint shows zero, pointing to a flat-to-declining trend rather than a growing one.
- Radiation-protection classification outweighs water treatment. G21F covers 69.6% of the 23 records against 26.1% for C02F, a legacy of nuclear-waste media handling now being read across to PFAS-laden media.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 23 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
A small, concentrated field built on adjacent nuclear-waste art
Spent media regeneration and disposal for PFAS treatment sits at the intersection of two much older bodies of art: nuclear and radioactive waste volume reduction, and granular activated carbon or ion-exchange handling for water treatment. Filings that specifically target desorption solvents, still bottom volumes, destruction of PFAS captured on spent media, or cross-media transfer losses during reactivation are still a small corpus. Twenty-three published records meet the scope of this search, and the ranking behind them is short enough that a handful of assignees account for essentially the whole field.
The classification mix is the clearest signal of where this art actually came from. Radiation protection and shielding (G21F) covers more than two-thirds of the records, well ahead of water treatment (C02F) or catalysis and chemical processing (B01J), which suggests much of the claim language was written for radioactive waste volume reduction and is now being extended, or cited against, PFAS-laden spent media.
Filing trend and technology composition
The 23 records in scope span receiving offices in Europe, the United States, Canada and via the PCT route, with filing activity concentrated in a single peak year rather than building steadily.
A single peak, then silence
Filings reached 8 in 2017, the peak year so far, and the 2022 midpoint sits at 0, consistent with a flat or declining trend into the most recent, still-partial year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one or two years will always look thinner than they eventually turn out to be — but even allowing for that lag, this field shows no sign of a renewed filing wave.
Radiation protection leads, water treatment follows
G21F (radiation protection & shielding) appears on 69.6% of the 23 records, B01J (chemical/physical processes & catalysis) on 30.4%, and C02F (water & wastewater treatment) on 26.1%. Smaller counts touch coke and destructive distillation, gasification and well drilling, each a single record. Because records can carry more than one class, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read against the 23-record total, not against each other.
Shares are the percentage of the 23 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Spent Media Regeneration and Disposal for PFAS Treatment with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about spent media regeneration and disposal for pfas treatment and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records anchor two different eras of the art
Systems and methods for the regeneration of ion exchange resins (WO2024129944A2)
Systems for treating water containing PFAS are disclosed. Systems include a PFAS separation stage including a vessel and an ion exchange resin having an affinity for PFAS positioned within the vessel. Systems further include an ion exchange resin regeneration stage with a source of an ion exchange resin regeneration solution including a surfactant. The ion exchange resin regeneration stage is configured to dose spent ion exchange resin with a volume of the ion exchange resin regeneration solution to remove PFAS from the spent ion exchange resin and regenerate the ion exchange resin. Methods of treating water including PFAS with regeneration of a spent ion exchange resin are disclosed.Filed by Evoqua Water Technologies LLC, published 2024-06-20 — the most recent PFAS-specific regeneration filing among the most-cited records.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5126050A | Granular activated carbon-sequencing batch biofilm reactor (GAC-SBBR) | 133 |
| 2 | US5122268A | Apparatus for waste disposal of radioactive hazardous waste | 18 |
| 3 | WO2024129944A2 | Systems and methods for the regeneration of ion exchange resins | 4 |
| 4 | US20180137946A1 | Thermal volume reduction of radioactive wastes | 4 |
| 5 | EP0412815A2 | Method and apparatus for concentrating dissolved and solid radioactive materials carried in a waste water sol… | 3 |
| 6 | US20220020507A1 | Method for conditioning ion exchange resins and apparatus for carrying out the method | 2 |
| 7 | WO2018094066A1 | Thermal volume reduction of radioactive wastes | 2 |
| 8 | US4260193A | Method for the renovation of an aquifer | 2 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to accumulate them inside this corpus; treat them as a measure of influence on later filings, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (8 of 8 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Read together, the concentration, the flat trend and the classification skew point to a field where the occupied ground is narrow but the surrounding claim space is genuinely open.
The field is effectively owned by a handful of filers
With the top five assignees combined accounting for 95.7% of all 23 records in scope, and all six ranked assignees covering 100%, there is no long tail of small entrants here. A new filer is either designing around this small group's claims or working in a corner they have not touched.
Activity peaked in 2017 and has not returned
The peak year so far was 2017 at 8 filings, and the 2022 midpoint shows zero. Even accounting for the roughly 18-month publication lag that always understates the most recent year, this is a field that filed hard once and has largely gone quiet since.
Nuclear-waste art still dominates the classification mix
G21F covers 69.6% of the 23 records against 26.1% for C02F, meaning most of the occupied claim space was written for radioactive waste handling and is being read across to PFAS-laden media rather than drafted for it from scratch.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to spent media regeneration and disposal for pfas treatment, with the prior art for and against each one.
A short ranking, no recent momentum from anyone in it
Six assignees make up the entire ranking behind this search, and none of them show any filings in the latest year — this is a field defined by its historical leader, not by current activity.
One assignee holds more than a third of the field on its own
The leading assignee's 8 records out of 23 total set the pace for this search; everything else in the ranking sits well below that, with fifth place holding only 1 record.
The drop-off from leader to fifth place is steep
Fifth place in the ranking holds just 1 record, against 8 for the leader. That gap, inside a ranking of only six companies, confirms this is a concentrated field rather than one with many comparably sized competitors.
No ranked assignee has filed in the most recent year
Every one of the six ranked assignees shows zero filings in the latest year. Combined with the flat trend since the 2017 peak, this reads as a dormant field on paper — though the 18-month publication lag means the very newest filings may not have surfaced yet.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Atkins Energy Global Solutions Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Evoqua Water Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Framatome S.A. | 0 | — |
| Atlantic Richfield Company | 0 | — |
| SBR Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a narrow, historically-driven field with specific gaps rather than a fast-moving one — the next steps are about confirming freedom to operate and finding the untouched corners.
Map claims against the leader's 8 records
Before drafting in the desorption-solvent or destruction space, check how far the leading assignee's claim scope actually reaches versus where it stops.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
C10B, C10J and E21B each carry only a single record in this search — worth a deeper prior-art pull before assuming they are genuinely open.
Run a deeper search in EurekaWatch for the lag-masked recent filings
Zero recent-year filings across all six ranked assignees may partly reflect the 18-month publication lag rather than true inactivity.
Set up monitoring in EurekaCommon questions on spent media regeneration and disposal patents
The ranking behind this search covers six assignees and 23 total records, with the leading assignee holding 8 of them. The top five assignees combined account for 95.7% of all 23 records, so ownership is concentrated rather than spread across many filers. This is a small field, so a single company's portfolio can represent a large share of the available prior art without that company necessarily being a household name in water treatment.
Filing peaked in 2017 at 8 records and the 2022 midpoint shows zero, which points to a flat or declining trend rather than sustained growth. Publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the most recent year or two in any dataset will always look thinner than it eventually turns out to be. Even with that adjustment, there is no visible renewed filing wave in this corpus.
The classification data shows G21F, radiation protection and shielding, on 69.6% of the 23 records, well ahead of C02F water treatment at 26.1%. Much of the technical language around volume reduction, destruction and disposal of spent hazardous media was originally developed for radioactive waste handling. PFAS-laden spent granular activated carbon and ion-exchange resin present a similar disposal problem, so that older art is now the closest available prior art and gets cited or extended into PFAS-specific filings.
WO2024129944A2, filed by Evoqua Water Technologies and published 2024-06-20, claims a system for treating PFAS-containing water that pairs a PFAS-selective ion exchange resin with a regeneration stage using a surfactant-based regeneration solution to strip PFAS from the spent resin and reuse it. It is one of the few records in this dataset that is PFAS-specific rather than adapted from radioactive-waste art. Anyone building a surfactant-based in-situ resin regeneration process should review its claim scope directly rather than relying on this summary.
The classification data shows only single-record coverage in coke and destructive distillation (C10B), gasification-based destruction (C10J), and downhole or well-related disposal (E21B), against much denser coverage in G21F and C02F. That pattern suggests thermal destruction routes and disposal-well approaches for spent PFAS media are comparatively under-claimed in this search scope. Anyone considering those routes should still run a dedicated freedom-to-operate search, since a thin count here reflects this specific search string, not the entire global patent record.
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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.