Patent Documents Analysis of Hydrocarbon Desulfurization Processes

The presence of sulfur components in natural gas, crude oil and products, causes problems such as corrosion, catalyst poisoning in factories where the gaseous and liquid products are delivered, environmental problems and heat value decrease which affects inversely on economic value of such resources. In the light of the increasing number of researches in the field of sulfur component emissions associated with oil and gas development, the present study is an effort aiming at mining all the patent information in the field of sulfur removal from hydrocarbon fluids and analyzing them at the strategic level. The results show that absorption and bio-desulfurization relating for gas sweetening and the processes based on extraction and adsorption in the field of sulfur removal from liquid hydrocarbon feed are the most attractive and innovative processes with more increasing patent publication rates. The analysis of the acquired information is of great value and benefit in determining the research and technology orientation and to the active inventors in the field.