Waste-to-SAF Gasification Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings have plateaued, not grown. the field peaked in 2018 at 32 filings and sat at 22 by 2022, with no renewed upward trend through the most recent complete years.
- The leader holds 52 records but the top 5 combined account for only 26.4% of all 550 records in scope — concentration exists but the field is not closed.
- Gasification claims dominate the class map, with C10J present on 56.0% of records, while purification (C10K, 16.0%) and coke/destructive distillation (C10B, 9.3%) remain comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (15 records) with 2024 (28) — 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 550 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of waste-derived syngas generation and the gas-cleanup steps that make that syngas usable downstream — tar cracking, reforming, chlorine and sulfur removal, and carbon-efficiency measures in municipal solid waste and biomass gasification. The scope spans 550 published records filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, drawn from a search string that pairs gasification feedstock terms with the specific conditioning and cleanup steps that separate a lab process from a commercially dispatchable syngas stream.
Publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the most recent year in any trend line understates real activity; treat the final year as a floor, not a ceiling.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 550 records: how filing activity moved year over year, and how those records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the gasification-to-cleanup chain.
A decade of flat-to-declining filing
Filings rose from 30 in 2017 to a peak of 32 in 2018, then eased back toward 22 by the 2022 midpoint — a pattern consistent with a field that filled its core claim space early rather than one still accelerating. The 2026 figure of 3 is a partial year and not a signal of collapse.
Gasification claims still dominate the class map
C10J (gasification of fuels) appears on 56.0% of the 550 records, more than double the next largest class. C07C and C01B, both tied to downstream chemical conversion, sit in the mid-twenties by share, while C10K (fuel gas purification) and C10B (coke and destructive distillation) trail at 16.0% and 9.3% respectively — the cleanup and conditioning end of the chain is comparatively under-filed relative to the gasification core.
Shares are the percentage of the 550 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Waste-to-SAF Gasification and Gas Cleanup with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about waste-to-saf gasification and gas cleanup and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a representative filing
Additive Systems for Biomass Gasification (US20130019528A1)
Filed by Air Products and Chemicals, this application describes a biomass gasification system that introduces a tar-cracking additive alongside the biomass feedstock, recovers the additive and ash from the resulting producer-gas mixture, and recycles the additive back into the feed. It is a claim over the additive-handling loop around the gasifier rather than over the gasifier itself.Abstract condensed from the original filing for length.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050095183A1 | Process and apparatus for biomass gasification | 155 |
| 2 | US6808543B2 | Biomass gasification system and method | 126 |
| 3 | US20040180971A1 | Method of biomass gasification | 112 |
| 4 | EP1312662A2 | Biomass gasification process, and apparatus, and their applications | 105 |
| 5 | US20100237291A1 | Systems and methods for solar-thermal gasification of biomass | 104 |
| 6 | US6680137B2 | Integrated biomass gasification and fuel cell system | 100 |
| 7 | US20070225383A1 | Method for producing bio-fuel that integrates heat from carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions to drive biomass… | 98 |
| 8 | US20110158858A1 | Waste to liquid hydrocarbon refinery system | 85 |
| 9 | KR100819505B1 | Unified steam reformer for conversion tar and soot(SRTS) to syngas and biomass gasification process for heat … | 71 |
| 10 | WO2008130260A1 | Waste to liquid hydrocarbon refinery system | 63 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus — read this as a measure of influence on later filings, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for a filing decision
Three findings that shape where a new filing is likely to clear prior art and where it is likely to collide with dense, well-cited claim space.
A leader, not a monopoly
The leading assignee holds 52 records, roughly double the fifth-ranked entrant at 23. But the top 5 combined still only reach 26.4% of all 550 records in scope, and the top 10 reach 39.6% — well over half the field sits outside the leading group, which points to a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants rather than a closed field.
Activity has flattened since the 2018 peak
Filing volume peaked in 2018 and had already eased to 22 by 2022, with no evidence of a second wave through the most recent complete years. Recent-year momentum among several previously active assignees has dropped to zero filings in the latest year, consistent with a maturing rather than accelerating field.
Cleanup and conditioning classes trail gasification claims
C10J (gasification of fuels) sits on well over half of all 550 records, while purification (C10K) and coke/destructive distillation (C10B) each cover a much smaller share. That gap between the gasification core and the downstream conditioning classes is where claim density is lowest relative to how central those steps are to producing a usable syngas stream.
China is the largest single receiving office
China accounts for the largest share of receiving-office filings at 177, ahead of the United States at 99, EPO at 57, WIPO/PCT at 43, Canada at 32 and Australia at 24. A filing strategy built only around US and EPO coverage would miss the office receiving the most activity in this space.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to waste-to-saf gasification and gas cleanup, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The ranked leaders hold meaningful but not exclusive positions; most of the field's activity sits outside the top group, and several conditioning-focused sub-areas remain lightly claimed.
A clear top filer, well ahead of second place
The leading assignee's 52 records are more than double the fifth-ranked entrant's 23, giving it a durable lead in raw filing count. That lead sits inside a top-5 group that still only covers 26.4% of the 550 records in scope, so the leader's position does not translate into control of the field.
Co-filing is concentrated in a handful of partnerships
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them — a university research foundation paired with an energy systems company — accounts for 12 shared records on its own. Co-filing here looks like a small number of durable technology-transfer relationships rather than a broad collaborative norm.
Several established filers have gone quiet
Multiple assignees that built meaningful positions earlier in the dataset show zero filings in the latest year. That is consistent with the broader flat-to-declining trend and suggests the largest historical filers are not the ones driving whatever residual activity remains.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Novomer Inc. | 0 | — |
| Sundrop Fuels Inc. | 0 | — |
| Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation | 0 | — |
| Japan Blue Energy Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Rentech Inc. | 0 | — |
| Energy Group | 0 | — |
| SILVAGAS CORP | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy, or identifying a filing gap.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the cleanup classes
C10K and C10B carry the lowest record shares of the classes tracked here, but that thinness can mean either open space or a small number of very broad blocking claims. A targeted search inside those two classes will tell you which.
Explore in Eureka →Track the assignees that went quiet
Several previously active filers show zero filings in the latest year. Understanding whether that reflects abandoned R&D, a shift to trade secrecy, or portfolio pruning changes how much weight to put on their older claims.
Explore in Eureka →Map the co-filing relationships in detail
With only 10 co-assignee pairs in the dataset, each one is a specific technology-transfer or joint-development relationship worth understanding on its own terms rather than treating as background noise.
Explore in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 52 of the 550 records in scope, more than double the fifth-ranked entrant's 23. That said, the top 5 assignees combined account for only 26.4% of all 550 records, and the top 10 reach 39.6%, so ownership is concentrated at the very top but far from consolidated across the field. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at the full ranked list rather than assuming the leader controls the space.
Filing activity peaked in 2018 at 32 records and had already eased to 22 by the 2022 midpoint, with no sign of renewed growth through the most recent complete years. The 2026 figure of 3 is a partial year understated by normal publication lag, so it should not be read as a sudden drop. Overall, the trend reads as flat-to-declining rather than an emerging or accelerating technology area.
Gas cleanup and conditioning steps — chlorine and sulfur guard beds, tar-cracking additive recovery, and feedstock heterogeneity handling — show comparatively thin IPC coverage relative to core gasification claims. C10K, the purification class, sits at 16.0% of records versus 56.0% for C10J, the gasification class itself. Since these conditioning steps are what determine whether a syngas stream is actually usable downstream, that gap is a reasonable place to look for a defensible first claim.
US20130019528A1, filed by Air Products and Chemicals, claims a biomass gasification system built around a tar-cracking additive that is introduced with the feedstock, separated from the producer gas along with ash, and recycled back into the feed loop. It blocks the specific combination of introducing, recovering and recycling a tar-cracking additive in that closed loop — it does not claim gasification generally or tar cracking by other means. A design-around would need to avoid recycling the additive in that specific closed-loop configuration, for example by using a single-pass additive or a different tar-management approach entirely.
China leads with 177 filings, ahead of the United States at 99, the European Patent Office at 57, the WIPO/PCT route at 43, Canada at 32 and Australia at 24. A filing or clearance strategy limited to the US and Europe would miss the office handling the largest volume of activity. This also means prior art searches focused only on English-language US and EP documents risk missing a substantial share of the field.
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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.