ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,286,684, issued on April 29, was assigned to Aurubis Beerse (Beerse, Belgium).
"Copper smelting process" was invented by Walter Guns (Beerse, Belgium), Niko Mollen (Beerse, Belgium), Bert Coletti (Beerse, Belgium), Steven Smets (Beerse, Belgium), Andy Breugelmans (Beerse, Belgium), Jan Dirk A. Goris (Beerse, Belgium), Yves De Visscher (Beerse, Belgium) and Charles Geenen (Beerse, Belgium).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed is a process for recovering copper from secondary raw materials including in a feed batch smelting in a furnace a feedstock including copper oxide and elemental iron for forming a concentrated copper intermediate, ...