Analysis of Patents on Separation Technologies for Stable Isotopes

Stable isotopes have been widely applied to the field of national defense, aerospace, medical diagnosis and fundamental physics. The application of stable isotopes has placed higher demands on separation technologies for stable isotopes. The import dependent of stable isotopes has restrained the research on the applied technologies of stable isotopes, so that it is urgent to establish an industrial chain of stable isotopes with proprietary intellectual property rights in China. Staring from the perspective of patents, global information about separation technologies of stable isotopes are analyzed to give references for scientific research innovation and patent portfolio in separation technologies of stable isotopes in China. Global patents on separation technologies for stable isotopes are collected from IncoPat patent database by utilizing searching strategy which combines IPC classification and keywords, then the trend of patent applications, technical resources of patents, important applicants, technology structure of patents and research hotspot are analyzed. The results show the highest number of separation technologies of stable isotopes patent applications is lodged by Japan, followed by China, America and Russia, while four out of ten patent applicants are Japanese. Primary separation technologies of stable isotopes focus on chemical replacement method, photochemical method, extraction method, distillation method and centrifugation method.