ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,590,352, issued on March 31, was assigned to GREENNOVO ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY Co. LTD. (Honghe, China).

"Ammonium complex system-based method for separating and purifying lead, zinc, cadmium, and copper" was invented by Yan Luo (Honghe, China), Liyang Ma (Honghe, China), Guojun Feng (Honghe, China), Wu Zhang (Honghe, China), Rui Chen (Honghe, China) and Qinglong Ma (Honghe, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An ammonium complex system-based method for separating and purifying lead, zinc, cadmium, and copper, comprising the following steps: a zinc-containing raw material is leached using a leach solution to produce a leached solution...