China leads global clean energy research: report

BEIJING, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- A report by Elsevier, a global information analytics business, indicates research related to clean energy has become a global focus and China has the leading position for the number of published papers and authorized patents in recent years, the Science and Technology Daily has reported.

The Netherlands-based research, publishing and information analytics company, released a report on the status of global clean energy research Wednesday.

The report says China has published about 400,000 research papers about clean energy since 2001, the most in the world. The country focused on research related to lithium battery or secondary battery over the last decade.

In terms of the number of patents, China beat the United States in 2012 and Japan in 2014 to become the country with the highest number of clean- energy patents. By the end of 2020, almost half of the global patents in this field were from China.