Method and apparatus for inerting transport containers

Abstract

A simple, inexpensive method of inerting transport containers, particularly for goods which easily spoil in the air, such as foodstuffs, plants and flowers, by a gas which contains nitrogen and a predetermined concentration of up to about 5 vol. % oxygen is made possible in the manner that air is conducted, in a cyclic pressure-change adsorption process, through a layer of adsorbent in which the oxygen in the air is adsorbed on the adsorbent in each case during an adsorption step at a pressure above atmospheric pressure and a nitrogen-rich gaseous mixture still containing oxygen which discharges at the end of the layer of adsorbent is conducted into the transport container to be inerted, and the adsorbed oxygen of the air is desorbed in each case during the desorption steps by reducing the pressure of the adsorbent and, finally, the next adsorption step is started, a multiple of the predetermined quantity of air necessary to maintain the desired oxygen content flowing in the adsorption steps through the layer of adsorbent in a first inerting phase and one time said the quantity of air flowing through it in a second inerting phase.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.