ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,319,585, issued on June 3, was assigned to TIANJIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (Tianjin, China).

"Method for producing calcium sulfate hemihydrate whiskers by using fermentation broth for producing lactic acid with calcium salt method as raw material and synchronously recovering lactic acid monomer" was invented by Zhengxiang Wang (Tianjin, China), Dandan Niu (Tianjin, China), Kangming Tian (Tianjin, China), Fuping Lu (Tianjin, China) and Chunli Shen (Tianjin, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The disclosure discloses a method for producing Alpha-calcium sulfate hemihydrate whiskers by using fermentation broth for producing lact...