System for handling sterilisation of thin-body flexible containers (POUCH)

Method of sterilisation of flexible pouches, comprising the steps of:

• producing a plurality of pouches, wherein each pouch comprises a container body formed by walls made of flexible film and a spout comprising an entrance portion with an inlet and a tube with an outlet, said spout being sealingly applied to the container body so as to protrude outside of it with at least a section of the tube;
• providing a plurality of sacrificial closures reversibly applicable to the outlet mouth of the spout;
• applying, sealingly and reversibly, the sacrificial closure to the outlet of the spout, thereby obtaining provisionally closed non-filled pouches to be sterilised;
• loading a plurality of provisionally closed non-filled pouches to be sterilised on a transport device for collective transport;
• forming a transport group, containing a plurality of transport devices, each carrying the provisionally closed non-filled pouches to be sterilised, stacked;
• transporting the transport group from the site of the producer subject to a steriliser subject;
• performing a sterlisation of the entire transport group loaded with provisionally closed non-filled pouches, by ionising radiation;
• picking the sterilised provisionally closed non-filled pouches from the transport device and sending them in succession to a sterile chamber;
• for each sterilised provisionally closed non-filled pouch, making at least a portion of the tube provided with the sacrificial closure to pass through the sterile chamber;
• during said passing through of the sterile chamber, separating the sacrificial closure from the tube, filling the sterilised open pouch and applying a tamper-proof cap to the tube to close the pouch.