Patenting Landscape for Hydrogen Technologies A worldwide study

Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on the planet and a very versatile source of energy with applications in automobiles, transportation, and large-scale industrial applications like steel and ammonia production. Byproducts from burning hydrogen produce no pollution when compared to other traditional fossil fuels. Hydrogen technology appears to be the most promising way to significantly reduce emissions, which prompted us to investigate this area further.

Despite the fact that Hydrogen has been hailed as a promising green fuel for more than two decades, the Hydrogen economy has had its share of difficulties. The most important of these is finding green hydrogen sources. Over 95% of all hydrogen is currently produced from non-renewable sources, primarily steam methane reformation, which requires a heat source and produces carbon dioxide as a by-product. Hydrogen must be compressed at high pressure before it can be used as a transportation fuel.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles have only recently gained popularity, but the technology has been developing for decades. Hydrogen-powered automotive technologies appear to have been the subject of significant research and development (R&D) activity, according to patent and scientific literature.

Worldwide Patent Filings

Majority of the patenting activity from 1 January 2011 for hydrogen-based technologies has been in China, Japan, South Korea, USA and Germany and these countries have been classified under Tier 1 (shown in Figure 1). The patent data also confirms that the USA and Japan were first to enter the fray as far as filing patents on new hydrogen technology. However, later entrants like China and South Korea have stepped up their patent filing activity in the last ten years. Some of the other notable countries making significant strides in patenting activity include France, Taiwan, Russia and the United Kingdom.

Companies around the world are known to place significant importance on their intellectual property portfolio in order to be global leaders on key hydrogen technologies. Figure 3 shows a list of the top 20 patent applicants and their country of origin. Toyota, Hyundai, Honda and Panasonic are the largest filers of patent applications by volume. Figures 4A to 4C show patent applicants by country under Tiers 1, 2 and 3.

For the last ten to fifteen years, Japanese companies have dominated the patenting landscape for hydrogen-related technologies, but a large number of Chinese companies have filed patent applications, and China has emerged as the top filing country for hydrogen-related technologies. In this field, Korean and German companies have also been very active. Surprisingly, one of the top twenty filers (General Motors) is an American company, while nine of the top twenty applicants are Japanese companies. Overall, there is a clear trend indicating high levels of patenting activity among companies with a stake in hydrogen-powered mobility, particularly automobiles.

Main technological of patent activity

Fuel Cells

Fuel Cell technology seems to have the highest level of patenting activity for hydrogen related patents. For hydrogen-related patents, it appears that fuel cell technology has the highest level of activity.

Hydrogen Storage

Hydrogen is highly flammable, has no odor, has a low volumetric energy density, and must be compressed at a high pressure in order to be transported. One of the most significant challenges in transitioning to a viable hydrogen economy is hydrogen storage and transportation. Compressed hydrogen gas tanks, liquid hydrogen tanks, cryogenic compressed hydrogen, metal hydrides, high-surface-area adsorbents, and novel hydrogen storage materials have all been used to store hydrogen.

On-board hydrogen storage systems that use a gas or liquid, or that store hydrogen in metal hydrides or high-surface-area adsorbents, are classified as “reversible” because hydrogen regeneration or refilling can take place on-board the vehicle.

Other methods that rely on a chemical reaction to produce hydrogen are inherently inconvenient because hydrogen regeneration is not possible on-board the vehicle; as a result, spent materials must be removed from the vehicle and regenerated off-site.

Hydrogen Processing

Another important area of technological advancement is the production of green hydrogen. Hydrogen must be produced in environmentally friendly ways if it is to succeed as an alternative fuel source. The majority of hydrogen is currently produced from fossil fuels, most commonly through steam methane reforming (SMR), which is energy intensive due to the strongly endothermic chemical reaction of methane to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Because of its negative environmental impact, hydrogen produced by steam reforming is commonly referred to as “grey hydrogen.” Grey hydrogen production consumes energy and emits carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide).

“Blue hydrogen”, like “grey hydrogen”, is produced by steam methane reformation. However, the carbon dioxide is captured and stored and therefore prevented from being released into the atmosphere.

Green hydrogen is made by electrolyzing water with renewable energy, making it the cleanest way to make hydrogen for use as a clean fuel. Green hydrogen holds a lot of promise for use as a clean fuel because it can be stored, distributed, and used away from the point of production.

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