PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15870864
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-01
Publication Date: 2018-05
Patent Classification: ["356", "436000"]

Abstract:
On-line detection of mesophase particles employs a laser diode light source to illuminate a target area with a pulsed laser linearly or circularly polarized probe beam. Analysis of images determines extent of presence the birefringent mesophase particles, which are precursors to coking in catalytic hydrocracking processes. The inherently polarized low-coherence, unfocused but sufficiently collimated, pulsed laser beam yield sharp imaging with high depth of field of very small mesophase particles that are present in a moving, dark reactor liquid environment.

Claim (Index 4):
A method of converting a heavy hydrocarbon feed into light hydrocarbon products comprising the steps of:\n (a) mixing a heavy hydrocarbons liquid feed with catalyst particles to form a slurry; (b) hydrocracking heavy hydrocarbons in the slurry in the presence of hydrogen in a reactor to produce a hydrocracked slurry product comprising lighter hydrocarbon products wherein the slurry product is withdrawn from the reactor; (c) monitoring mesophase particles in the reactor by (i) directing a pulsed laser probe beam from a laser diode light source along a first beam path into a continuous reactor fluid stream wherein the probe beam comprises circularly polarized light and a quarter-wave plate converts linearly polarized light from the laser diode light source into circularly polarized light such that an output beam emerges from the continuous reactor fluid stream along a second beam path, (ii) obtaining an image of the mesophase particles in the continuous reactor fluid stream, and (iii) analyzing the image to determine at least one of volume fraction or size distribution of mesophase particles in the continuous reactor fluid stream; and (d) adjusting reactor conditions to reduce levels of mesophase particles formed during hydrocracking.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 3.0
- Percentile: 86.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.40323
- Patent Class: 356.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15226340', '15796697', '15789931', '15789926', '15796702']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6642904490445442
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.575547858333133
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.655416189973403
- Mean Citation Score: 279.57517199999995
- Max Citation Score: 469.0385
- Similarity Product: 398.1996134573519

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test