US Patent Issued to City University of Hong Kong on Feb. 3 for "Method for preparing gamma-butyrolactone" (Chinese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,540,407, issued on Feb. 3, was assigned to City University of Hong Kong (Kowloon, Hong Kong).

"Method for preparing gamma-butyrolactone" was invented by Chun Ho Lam (Kowloon, Hong Kong), Shengqin Liu (Kowloon, Hong Kong), Yangxin Jin (Kowloon, Hong Kong), Qi Zhu (Kowloon, Hong Kong) and Shan Shao (Kowloon, Hong Kong).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for preparing gamma-butyrolactone including converting furoic acid to the gamma-butyrolactone in an undivided cell without a mediator for paired electrolysis, including the steps of: a) electrochemically oxidizing the furoic acid to 2(5H)-furanone; and b) electrochemically reducing the 2...