ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,305,132, issued on May 20, was assigned to CHINA UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM (EAST CHINA) (Shandong, China).

"Process for preparing fuel gas through graded pyrolysis and gasification of powdered coal" was invented by Yuanyu Tian (Qingdao, China), Yingyun Qiao (Qingdao, China), Kechang Xie (Qingdao, China), Jingxian Wang (Qingdao, China), Zhenghong Luo (Qingdao, China), Yanpeng Zhang (Qingdao, China), Yiliang Tian (Qingdao, China) and Ruotong Cui (Qingdao, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A process for preparing fuel gas through gasification of powdered coal, comprising: contacting powdered coal and ash residue in a riser reactor under hy...