US Patent Issued to Northwestern University on Oct. 14 for "Thioanion-functionalized polypyrroles for metal ion capture" (American, Chinese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,441,834, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.).

"Thioanion-functionalized polypyrroles for metal ion capture" was invented by Mercouri G. Kanatzidis (Wilmette, Ill.) and Shulan Ma (Beijing).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Polypyrrole polymers functionalized with thioanions and methods for their use in metal capture applications are provided. Also provided are methods for making the polypyrroles using anion exchange techniques. The thioanion-functionalized polypyrroles have a conjugated, positively charged backbone of pyrrole units that is charge-balanced with associated thioanions."

The patent was fil...