ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,317,402, issued on May 27.
"Radio frequency inductively coupled plasma (RF-ICP) torch" was invented by Patrick Michael Mirek (Oakville, Canada), Sina Alavi (North York, Canada) and Javad Mostaghimi (Mississauga, Canada).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A conical inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch (100) and a method for processing sample particles is disclosed. In this method raw, unprocessed, irregularly shaped sample particles (21) are injected into the conical torch, and pass through the plasma to form molten particles (22) and a spheroidization of the particles finally generates solid, smooth, spherical and dense processed particles ...