Improved method for producing chemical leads to patent for three Sugar Land men

Three men from Sugar Land are part of a team that recently received a U.S. patent for its invention of a more efficient way to produce a chemical called chloral.

Chloral is useful in medical and pharmaceutical applications because of its sedative properties. It can also be used as a chemical building block in other processes, most notably in the manufacture of the pesticide DDT (now banned).

In the patent, the inventors claim that its new process allows for more efficient, less energy-intensive production of chloral with a lower chance of undesirable reactions.

The patent credits the following inventors with the new method: Abbas Hassan of Sugar Land; Rayford G. Anthony of College Station; Gregory G. Borsinger of Chatham, New Jersey; and Aziz Hassan of Sugar Land. The patent's official number is 7,884,250. It was originally filed on Dec. 10, 2009, and approved on Feb. 8 of this year. The filers were represented by Houston-based intellectual property firm Conley Rose, whose offices are located at 600 Travis St. The patent's owner is listed as HRD Inc.

HRD is a privately held corporation whose subsidiaries include Marcus Oil and Chemical. Its offices are located at 11706 Canemont St. in Houston.