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US 12,378,640 B2Granted
Composition and method or recovering rare-earth elements
OwnerBradley Stockmanninventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Disclosed is a method for recycling metal-chelates by separating the metal or metal ion from the chelate by forming a metal salt or metal precipitate apart from the chelator. In various embodiments, gadolinium-chelates, which are used as MRI contrast agent and which create vial hold-up material that is otherwise discarded, are acid or solvent treated to promote separation of the gadolinium from the chelate for downstream sale or further processing.
Claims15
A method of separating a metal of gadolinium from a chelate, the method comprising:
- a. pooling residual amounts of a solution from two or more containers to form a residual solution, wherein said residual solution comprises a (i) compound comprising gadolinium or gadolinium ion and a chelate or polyol, (ii) an excipient, and (iii) water for injection;
- and
- b. extracting said gadolinium or gadolinium ion from said residual solution comprising a step of forming a gadolinium salt precipitate by reducing the pH of the residual solution to pH<1.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.