Supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) heats and pressurizes water above its critical point, roughly 374°C and 22.1 MPa, where it behaves as a single dense fluid that dissolves both organic contaminants and oxygen. In that state, oxidation reactions proceed rapidly and can break the strong carbon-fluorine bonds in PFAS molecules, mineralizing them into fluoride, carbon dioxide and water rather than merely concentrating or capturing the contaminant. This is why SCWO is positioned as a destructive rather than a separative technology for PFAS-impacted groundwater, landfill leachate and aqueous film-forming foam.

The patent ranking in this dataset covers 661 records across 100 assignees, with the leading assignee holding 47 records and the fifth-ranked holding 21. The top five assignees combined account for 23.1% of all 661 records, meaning leadership is real but far from exclusive — the majority of filings sit outside the top five. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at the full ranked list rather than assume a single dominant player, since the field includes a long tail of smaller and newer filers.

Based on the IPC composition, 69.6% of the 661 records fall under C02F (water and wastewater treatment), while 28.1% fall under B01J covering chemical and physical processes including catalysis, and 11.5% under B01D separation processes. Smaller but notable shares appear in solid waste disposal, inorganic byproduct chemistry, and detoxification framings. This distribution suggests most current claims treat SCWO primarily as a water-treatment process, with comparatively less claim density specifically on reactor engineering challenges like corrosion and salt precipitation.

Filing rose from 31 records in 2017 to a peak of 59 in 2024, but the 2022 midpoint of 49 shows the field was already near its eventual peak two years earlier, indicating growth has flattened rather than accelerated in recent years. The 2026 figure of 14 records looks like a sharp drop but reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual slowdown in filing activity. Readers should treat any trend line's final one to two years as understated rather than as evidence of declining interest.

US20230373824A1, filed by Revive Environmental Technology, LLC, claims specific operating conditions for destroying perfluorosulfonic acids via SCWO, including temperatures at or above 600°C and pressures near 3,500 psi, with data showing destruction of PFAS from inlet concentrations up to 50 parts per million down to below 70 parts per trillion. It also documents a correlation between reactor temperature and flowrate, noting that temperatures at or above 450°C are sufficient to destroy perfluorinated carbon chains. Anyone designing a competing process should examine the specific temperature, pressure and flowrate ranges claimed here closely, since these operating-window claims are the kind of narrow, testable limitation that is hardest to design fully around.