Plant and method to continuously decontaminate rigid containers

A plant to continuously decontaminate containers, the plant comprising:

• a decontamination chamber, which includes supporting means including a tray having a plurality of through openings and includes feeding means to feed at least one row of containers, which are aligned according to a first direction, along the tray in a second direction, which is transverse to the first direction;
• vaporized hydrogen peroxide generating means to generate a gaseous mixture including air and vaporized hydrogen peroxide;
• first forced ventilation means, which are connected to the vaporized hydrogen peroxide generating means to receive the gaseous mixture and to the decontamination chamber to generate, in the latter, a first flow of said gaseous mixture, which is oriented so as to hit the row of containers in the decontamination chamber from above;
• and
• dispenser means, which are connected to the vaporized hydrogen peroxide generating means to receive the gaseous mixture and are arranged under the tray to generate a second flow of said gaseous mixture, which is oriented so as to hit the row of containers in the decontamination chamber from below, through the through openings;
• wherein said feeding means include a feeding grid, which includes a plurality of pushing members defined by oblong elements extending transverse to the second direction and uniformly equidistant to each other along the second direction so that the space between any pair of pushing members adjacent to each other can accommodate a row of containers,
• wherein said feeding means include two guiding assemblies arranged on opposite sides of said tray, compared to a centerline of the tray parallel to said second direction, and two raising devices, which support said feeding grid on two corresponding sides and each of which is movably mounted along a corresponding guiding assembly to move the feeding grid parallel to the second direction,
• wherein each of the two guiding assemblies includes two guides that are parallel to said second direction and each of the two raising devices includes two slides, each of which is slidably coupled to a corresponding guide via a corresponding recirculating ball screw driven by a corresponding electric actuator, an articulated parallelogram, which connects one side of the feeding grid to a first slide, and an arm, which connects, in an articulated way, the second slide to an intermediate point of the articulated parallelogram to enable an up-and-down movement of the feeding grid in correspondence with a reciprocal further apart and closer together movement of the two slides.