ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,338,129, issued on June 24, was assigned to Imerys USA Inc. (Roswell, Ga.).
"Synthesis of hectorite-type mineral" was invented by Jie Lu (San Jose, Calif.), Benjamin Yip (Fremont, Calif.) and Michael Greene (San Jose, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of making a synthetic hectorite-type mineral is described, along with its resulting physical and rheological properties. The synthetic hectorite-type mineral is a 2:1 phyllosilicate essentially free of aluminum, and having a trioctahedral structure with Mg2+ and Li+ occupying octahedral sites. As a hydrogel, the synthetic hectorite-type mineral has a swell index of greater than...