ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,359,147, issued on July 15, was assigned to ECOLAB USA INC. (Saint Paul, Minn.).

"Solidifying liquid anionic surfactants" was invented by Wendy Lo (Saint Paul, Minn.), Erik C. Olson (Saint Paul, Minn.), Jon D. Hansen (Saint Paul, Minn.), Katherine Molinaro (Saint Paul, Minn.) and Corey Rosenthal (Saint Paul, Minn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention relates to solidification of liquid anionic surfactants with a binder, carrier, or both binder and carrier to form a solidified surfactant composition. In particular, the invention relates to solidification of liquid surfactants utilizing drying device(s), wherein the feed compositio...