Hydrogen Peroxide Industrial Production: A Patent Landscape Study

The aim of this study is to present an overview of patented industrial hydrogen peroxide production processes. Searches were conducted using two databases, namely, Espacenet and Orbit, using mainly IPC and CPC classification symbols, sometimes combined with keywords. An analysis of the data from the Orbit database reveals that the anthraquinone auto-oxidation (AO) process and electrochemical methods have the highest number of active patents. When examining patent applications filed from 2020 onwards, electrochemical methods are found to be the most prevalent, followed by the auto-oxidation of anthraquinone. The data suggest that companies are investing less in the anthraquinone auto-oxidation process compared to electrochemical methods. Research is now focused on synthesizing hydrogen peroxide from water by means of photocatalytic methods, instead of direct synthesis using H2 and O2.