Signal · CO₂ utilisation routesPrepared for Sumitomo Chemical · September 2026
The fastest route here does not make methanol. It makes the gas you feed a methanol plant.
The Ehime reactor has run since December 2023, the demonstration ends in 2028, and licensing is planned for the 2030s. So the capital decision sits between now and 2028. This is how fast every competing use of the same CO₂ is improving.
Six core CO₂-utilisation routes, three boundary references · the fast route read patent by patent
The decision
Whether to scale the Ehime process · demonstration ends 2028, licensing planned for the 2030s
The clock
Ehime reactor running since December 2023 · the capital decision sits between now and 2028
The map
Nine competing uses of the same CO₂, measured on maturity and improvement rate.
The high/low TIR bands split on the median improvement rate of these nine routes (19.6%/yr) — a judgement relative to this domain, not a fixed threshold; Sumitomo's own methanol route sits exactly on it. The maturity split is TRL 5, the end of validation in a relevant environment. Three boundary references (grey) frame the field. Where routes overlap they are drawn nudged apart, with grey dots at their true positions. Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026.
What the signal shows
The cluster19%/yr
Every industrial route improves at the same speed.
Your route is top of the five, by four tenths of a point. Methanol 19.6%, plastics 19.2%, fuels 19.1%, feed gas 18.6%, minerals 18.6%. What you make barely matters — the field moves about 19% a year.
The fast route, up close43.6%/yr
43.6% a year. The average cell lasts twelve hours.
A third of it makes carbon monoxide. Only 5% makes methanol. Half runs on bottled CO₂; only 13% on real flue gas. 6 patents in 1,000 are both strong enough and last long enough — two are Toshiba’s.
Who is there102 patents
Your neighbours own it. So does a Sumitomo company.
Toshiba holds more than anyone. Then Siemens, Toyota, Honda, NTT, Panasonic. Start-ups too: Avantium 18, Twelve 17, Toronto with TotalEnergies 17. Sumitomo Metal Mining has 15 patents with Kyoto University, on the slow light-driven route — 64% universities.
Who holds the patents
Patent families per route — and each route’s biggest holder.
Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026
Three boundary references (grey) frame the field. The orange bar is Sumitomo’s route: methanol’s 1,997 families are led by Sinopec and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Toshiba’s 102 electrochemical families are the single biggest holding in any core route.
For Sumitomo
Your 2028 decision is safe. The fast route does not make your product. It makes what you feed the plant, so it could supply you rather than replace you. And it is nowhere near ready. The thing to watch: Toshiba, Siemens, Toyota and Honda are all building the front end of your process.
The method, in one minute
What is TIR?
TIR — the Technology Improvement Rate — measures how fast a technology gets better each year, computed from global patent data. Not who is filing, or how much: how fast the route is actually moving. Historically, the fastest-improving technology always wins.
Signal 1 · Cycle time
How many years between one generation of inventions and the next.
Methodology co-developed with MIT — 30 years of peer-reviewed research.
What we could look into next
Three questions this teaser opened.
01
Carbon monoxide, not methanol
If electric CO gets cheap, does your reactor still win? A direct comparison.
02
Your own group
Sumitomo Metal Mining has 15 patents with Kyoto University. What do they claim?
03
PMMA
Your licence is seven months old. Is Mitsubishi's microwave route on a steeper curve?
Pick one, or choose a new topic. We run it as a full proof of concept for you, at no cost.
A free proof of concept, on your question
Pick one question. We run it for free.
Compare electric CO against your reactor head-to-head, read Sumitomo Metal Mining's 15 Kyoto patents, or put Mitsubishi's microwave PMMA route on the same curve — we run any one as a full proof of concept, at no cost, walked through with our analysts.
