ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,415,979, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to GUANGDONG LABORATORY OF SOUTHERN OCEAN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (GUANGZHOU) (Guangdong, China) and GUANGDONG UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (Guangdong, China).

"Membrane bioreactor for deep-sea cold seeps and online environmental parameter measurement system" was invented by Zhifeng Yang (Guangdong, China), Jingchun Feng (Guangdong, China), Si Zhang (Guangdong, China), Yi Wang (Guangdong, China), Song Zhong (Guangdong, China) and Yanpeng Cai (Guangdong, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides a membrane bioreactor for deep-sea cold seeps. The bioreactor is used for simula...