ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,377,582, issued on Aug. 5, was assigned to Arkema France (Puteaux, France).

"Method for recycling filtering facepiece respirators" was invented by Anthony Bonnet (Colombes, France) and Salima Boutti (Serquigny, France).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention relates to a method for recycling respiratory protection masks comprising a plurality of layers manufactured from a single thermoplastic polymer chosen from polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polylactic acid, homopolymers and copolymers of polyamide 6 (PA6) and long-chain polyamides such as PA11 or PA12, and comprising a filtration layer made of polyvinylidene fluoride." ...