Technology exploration and forecasting of biofuels and biohydrogen energy from patent analysis

The status and activity of technological development in the field of biofuel and biohydrogen energy from the year 2000–2011 were investigated utilizing patent bibliometric analysis. Based on the reports, the current status indicates that the key technologies for biofuel energy have reached technological maturity in the United States. However, the principal or predominant technologies for biohydrogen energy need a great deal of work to accelerate the development of biohydrogen technology. In addition, three important subjects were found from citation techniques, which are related to biodiesel fuel, biological fuel cell, and the biohydrogen. These patents described that the focus of key techniques of energy production should be established towards low energy demand technologies, and biohydrogen was found to be a potential candidate of the future. Finally, this proposed model can be applied to all high-technology cases, and particularly to green energy field.

► Using patent analysis for technological status investigation. ► Biofuel and biohydrogen energy is a good candidate in scientific field. ► Quickly finding out the most important patents in this study. ► Realizing statuses and activities of production and application.