Apparatus for aseptic and antiparticulate opening of sealed glass containers
AssigneeMillipore Corporation
InventorJean Lemonnier
Life of this patent
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Abstract
According to the method of aseptic and antiparticulate opening of a sealed glass ampul, one end of the ampul is submitted to a powerful thermal flux produced by flame tongue generating sources on a very localized zone for a time period sufficient to obtain melting of the glass while maintaining the adjacent portion thereof at lower temperature for preserving its rigidity, such time period being the shorter the smaller that volume of gas contained in the ampul which is quickly brought to an increased temperature and pressure to cause the ampul to be opened up in the considered molten zone.
Claims6
A device adapted to aseptically and antiparticulately open a sealed glass ampul containing a liquid or a solid product by melting the glass at the side of the desired opening while protecting said liquid or solid product from a temperature increase, said device comprising
- at least two heat sources for generating an intensive thermal flux in the form of flame tongues of a very high temperature close to the glass melting temperature, said heat sources facing each other and being disposed so that the flame tongues meet to form a substantially vertical disk-like halo tangential to the surface of said side of glass surface;
- and
- said at least two heat sources being mounted on a fork, said fork comprising cooling means for preventing overheating thereof.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.