ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,269,757, issued on April 8, was assigned to China Academy of Transportation Sciences (China).

"Highway sponge-type composite side ditch carbon neutralization system and method thereof" was invented by Xuexin Liu (Beijing), Jiding Chen (Beijing), Shuangcheng Tao (Beijing), Yaping Kong (Beijing), Xinjun Wang (Beijing), Shuohan Gao (Beijing) and Shanqian Huang (Beijing).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The highway sponge-type composite side ditch carbon neutralization system of the present invention includes three units, i.e., a silt pre-sedimentation channel, a filtering and oil-absorbing channel and an ecologic purification channel which are...