PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15880581
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-01
Publication Date: 2018-06
Patent Classification: ["166", "245000"]

Abstract:
A method for in situ solution mining of a mineral from an underground evaporite stratum using a set of wells in fluid communication with at least one mineral cavity with some wells operated in solvent injection mode and other wells operated in brine production mode and optionally with some inactive wells, comprising switching the operation mode of one or more wells. The evaporite mineral preferably comprises trona. The at least one cavity may be formed by directionally drilled uncased boreholes or by lithological displacement of the evaporite stratum at a weak interface with an underlying insoluble stratum by application of a lifting hydraulic pressure to create an interfacial gap. The extracted brine can be processed to make valuable products such as soda ash and/or any derivatives thereof. This method can provide more uniform dissolution of mineral in the cavity, minimize flow channeling, minimize sodium bicarbonate blinding for solution mining of incongruent trona ore, and/or may avoid uneven deposit of insolubles.

Claim (Index 1):
In an underground formation comprising an evaporite mineral stratum comprising trona, nahcolite, wegscheiderite, or combinations thereof, a method for solution mining an evaporite mineral from at least one cavity having a mineral free face, said method comprising:\n a) providing a set of wells in fluid communication with the at least one cavity, said set comprising a first subset of wells being operated in injection mode and a second subset of separate wells operated in production mode; b) injecting a solvent into the at least one cavity through the first subset operated in injection mode for the solvent to contact the mineral free face as the solvent flows through the at least one cavity and to dissolve in situ at least a portion of the mineral from the free face into the solvent to form a brine; c) extracting at least a portion of said brine to the ground surface through the second subset of wells operated in production mode; d) switching the operation mode of at least one well from the set after a period of time based in response to measurement of at least one parameter selected from the group consisting of: brine temperature, brine pH, brine outflow rate from each well operated in production mode, insolubles content, brine concentration of mineral ore, content in solvent-soluble impurities, and any combinations thereof; and (e) repeating the steps (a) to (d).

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 45.0
- Percentile: 86.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.69
- Patent Class: 166.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14657448', '14062877', '13193995', '14526044', '12487802']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8181736059153875
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.6812406438866123
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8044803097125099
- Mean Citation Score: 451.64056199999993
- Max Citation Score: 728.9317
- Similarity Product: 702.453489363867

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 0
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test