Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report - Third Edition highlights:
- CCUS-related patent filings reached an all-time high in 2021, double that of 2020.
- More filings related to CCUS technologies originate in the US than any other country.
- Global growth trend is emerging, with filings from other jurisdictions doubling.
- Innovation of modular CCUS-technologies allow carbon capture to become easier to install into current industrial sites.
- Innovation of Direct Air Capture continues its growth.
The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) suggests carbon neutrality by mid-21st century is essential to limit global warming. This target is also laid down in the Paris agreement signed by 195 countries. However, the aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 may not be achievable by only reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we release. To offset the heating effect of the greenhouse gases already present in the atmosphere, it is likely that these gases must be actively removed. As such, the capture, utilisation, and storage of carbon emissions (CCUS) is becoming increasingly important in the global effort to mitigate climate change.
Many countries and regions continue to increase funding for CCUS projects, while providing tax breaks to stimulate innovation. The US announced funding under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and favourable CCUS tax credit changes in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The EU launched the Net Zero Industry Act in March 2023, which links the production of fossil fuel to developing CO2 storage capacity and further provides improved permitting procedures for CCUS. Similarly, the UK, in its Spring Budget 2023, announced GBP 20 bn worth of investment for the early deployment of CCUS projects.
CCUS: global patent filing trends
Global patent filings demonstrate the technical innovations emerging in response to the demand for CCUS, supported by new policies that are increasing the funding and tax credits available to CCUS projects. In the second edition of Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report, we reported that the volume of CCUS-related global patent filings, in all jurisdictions discussed, was increasing to near 2011/2012 levels. In this third edition of the report, we can see that patent filings in this technology area have significantly surpassed the previous peak in 2011, with 2021 having the largest number of new patent filings to date, nearly doubling 2020 filings (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Twenty-year trend - global priority filings - CCUS
(Priority filing = the first time a patent application for a unique invention has been filed (the first filing))
Which countries are leading innovation in CCUS technologies?
More CCUS-related patent filings originate in the US, than any other country (Figure 2). This probably indicates a positive correlation between new filings and the funding and tax credit policies implemented by the US in 2021.
South Korea, Europe and Japan mirror the US, with more patent filings in 2021 compared to the previous year, albeit at lower relative levels. Counter to the other top filers, fewer patents have been filed in the UK, although with more funding promised earlier this year, it will be interesting to see if the UK can replicate the filing trends observed in the US, where more money is available to incentivise CCUS development.
Figure 2: Twenty-year trend - top five filing jurisdictions - CCUS
Currently, China is the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, and is committed to implementing CCUS technologies to reduce its emissions.
Despite initially developing CCUS technologies in the early 2000’s, by 2021 only a handful of patent applications filed in China covering CCUS technologies have progressed internationally. However, in 2021, China was the fourth largest international filer in this area. Our research often finds that China-only filings outnumber filings coming from the rest of the world combined (see Methodology for more detail). However, China files relatively few patents internationally and, therefore, does not rank among international top filers – with the exception of CCUS. As China continues to develop its CCUS technologies, will we see a continued push to commercialise their advancements globally?
Notable companies
Over the past 20 years, the top filers in CCUS technologies include General Electric Technology GmbH and General Electric Co., IFP Energies Nouvelles, Korea Electric Power Corp, Alstom SA, Korea Energy Research Inst, Toshiba KK, AIR Liquide, and Hitachi Ltd. These companies generally filed large amounts of patent applications in the early 2010s and were part of the initial trend of patent filings relating to carbon capture (Figure 3). More recently, larger number of filings are found for Korea Inst Energy RES and AIR Liquide.
Figure 3: Twenty-year trend - top filers - CCUS
Analysis of patents filed only in the past five years show the top filers include Climeworks AG, Next Carbon Solutions LLC, Korean Institute Energy Research, Lowcarbon Co. Ltd. and TNO (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Five-year trend - top filers - CCUS
Pollutant source
Historically, flue gases have been the primary target for carbon capture. This is due to the high, localised concentration of carbon dioxide. Flue gases are generally the exhaust from power stations and industrial chemical operations, where carbon dioxide is released. More recently, there has been a focus on applying carbon capture to industries which are difficult to decarbonise. An example of this includes the concrete/cement industry which releases a large amount of carbon dioxide partly because of the amount of energy required to heat limestone, which is converted into calcium oxide and carbon dioxide.
As technologies progress, we now have the capabilities to extract carbon from lower concentration sources, such as from polluted air.
Figure 5 shows the different classifications of waste gases for CCUS patents filed over the past 20 years. Although flue gases remain a priority, capturing and storing carbon from polluted air has become the primary area of innovation in recent years. Additionally, we might observe the beginning of a trend for innovations aimed explicitly at the cement industry and engine emissions.
Figure 5: Twenty-year filing trend - global priority filings by source of waste gases - CCUS
Key areas of innovation
Method of carbon capture
Using amine-based solutions to capture concentrated carbon dioxide is already well known and commericialised. Solutions of alkylamines are used to remove carbon dioxide from gas - carbon dioxide can then be selectively released for utilisation or storage by heating the saturated solution. This results in releasing a free amine for reuse to capture carbon dioxide. This cycle is the foundation of many carbon capture technologies, with continuing development of more stable amine solutions. This is because the carbon dioxide can degrade the amines over time and cause loss due to vaporisation.
Innovations include use of solid amine-based technologies, such as those developed and used by Climeworks, in which porous, high surface area material is repeatedly exposed to the air until the surface is fully bound with CO2. The trapped CO2 is again released by heating, but requiring much lower temperatures than traditional liquid systems.
Alternative technologies are also being developed, including electrochemical and photoelectrochemical methods which use redox cycling to release CO2 from a liquid electrolyte adsorber. The advantages of technologies in different membranes are also being protected with patents to use in carbon capture systems. These systems adopt a semipermeable membrane to filter and separate carbon dioxide from a gas stream, normally under high pressure.
Engineering solutions for at-source carbon capture
Although most patent filings are categorised as chemistry focussed, a large number relate to efficiency innovations in established methods of carbon capture, or in new ways to capture carbon previously not considered as a source.
For example, industrial carbon capture projects that involve installing CCUS technology into operating plants can be expensive. Modular or semi-modular carbon capture systems are an attractive engineering solution to reduce the cost of installing carbon capture units. Leading companies include Carbon Clean and Aker Carbon Capture, which have developed such solutions. Recently, Aker Carbon Capture helped build the first full-scale carbon capture and storage value chain in Denmark, together with Ørsted, Microsoft and Northern Lights.
Additionally, the transport sector is one of the largest greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting sectors (24 percent of total UK emissions in 2020). Carbon capture solutions emerging for the automotive industry provide unique ways to make carbon capture effective for vehicular emissions. In 2021, Volkswagen joined the ranks of global filers, with patents that include aspects relating to CCUS devices for cars. Toyota recently filed patents relating to carbon dioxide recovery systems including a ‘recovery road’ which contains stationary CO2 recovery devices along the road to collect and recover emissions from the atmosphere as hybrid vehicles travel past.
Direct air capture
Direct air capture (DAC) – a relatively new technology – extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere (rather than at the source of the emission), for storage or utilisation. Since we discussed DAC in last year’s Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report, DAC is continuing to be a viable solution for reducing global carbon in the atmosphere.
Globally, DAC-related CCUS patent filings have been growing since 2018, almost doubling from 2020 to 2021. The patent filing trends for DAC technologies reflect the importance of this innovative technological area.
Figure 6: Ten-year trend - global priority filings - direct air capture innovations
Continued global investment in, and the improved commercial viability of, carbon capture indicates a promising future for this technology area. The lead filers in direct air capture include Climeworks AG, Global Thermostat Operations LLC, and Carbon Eng Ltd.
Implications for innovation and future patent filings
In addition to carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases are negatively affecting the environment and are a target for reduction. Methane is the second largest contributor to climate change, with nitrous oxides and CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) also linked to global warming. The ever-accelerating increase of global methane and nitrous oxide concentrations presents a challenge to reduce these greenhouse gases and, therefore, a potential area for innovation in the future for alternative gas capture, utilisation, and storage technologies. Over the past 20 years, only a fraction of patents filed are classified as related to the capture, storage, sequestration or disposal of nitrous oxide or methane (~9 percent methane and ~11 percent nitrous oxides).
Overall, the outlook for the CCUS industry is very positive. With increasing government support and public pressure to reach carbon neutrality, further innovation, and a significant increase in deployment of CCUS systems is likely. In the future, we may also see more innovation of specialised CCUS systems for use in specific industries and applications, plus novel capture technologies for other greenhouse gases.
David Walsh
Partner
Ashley Wragg
Patent Attorney