Method and an apparatus for high-purity bottling of beverages
AssigneeKrones AG
InventorKarl-Heinz Achhammer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention refers to a method for high-purity bottling of beverages and an apparatus for carrying out such a method. For achieving high-purity bottling within a confined space and for reducing the operating expenses in comparison with conventional plants, it is suggested that an immersion bath sterilizer should be connected directly to a rotary filling machine and that the rotary filling machine should be arranged in a clean room, whereas in the area of the bottle conveying path through said clean room ultraclean-room conditions are created.
Claims12
A method for high-purity bottling of beverages into bottles, including bottles made of plastic material or glass, comprising the steps of:
- a) advancing the bottles (7) to first travel into a dirt side (8) of an immersion bath sterilizer (2), said bath sterilizer comprising the dirt side and an ultraclean-room side, said ultraclean-room side (9) having an atmosphere containing less than one hundred germs per cubic meter of air,
- b) advancing the bottles to run on a path (13) through at least one immersion bath (14, 16),
- c) advancing the bottles to pass at least one wall (10) separating the dirt side from the ultraclean-room side,
- d) transferring the bottles at an outlet of the ultraclean-room side of the immersion bath sterilizer (2) to an inlet of a rotary filling machine (2) wherein said bottles are filled while arranged in an arcuate path, said rotary filling machine (3) and a closing machine (4) being arranged in a room (1) in which clean-room conditions, wherein the atmosphere contains less than 10,000 germs per cubic meter of air, prevail, and
- e) creating ultraclean-room conditions of less than one hundred germs per cubic meter of air along a bottle conveying belt from the outlet of the immersion bath sterilizer (2) to the filling machine, the closing machine (4) and to an outlet of said closing machine for transferring said bottles in said ultraclean-room conditions.
An apparatus for high purity bottling of beverages into bottles, including bottles made of glass or plastic materials, comprising in combination an immersion bath sterilizer (2) an interior of which is divided into a dirt side (8) and an ultraclean-room side (9) by means of at least one partition (10), said ultraclean-room side having an atmosphere containing less than one hundred germs per cubic meter of air;
- a rotary filling machine (3) wherein said bottles are filled while arranged in an arcuate path, said rotary filling machine connected directly to an outlet of said immersion bath sterilizer (2) on the ultraclean-room side;
- a closing machine (4) connected directly to said rotary filling machine (3);
- and means (19, 23, 29) for maintaining ultraclean-room conditions and defining an ultraclean-room region of said rotary filling machine and closing machine, said rotary filling and closing machines being arranged in a clean room wherein the atmosphere contains less than 10,000 germs per cubic meter of air;
- and a bottle conveying path from the outlet of said immersion bath sterilizer (2) on the ultraclean-room side to the filling machine, to the closing machine, and to the outlet of said closing machine (4) wherein the bottles are transferred in ultraclean-room conditions in which the atmosphere contains less than one hundred germs per cubic meter of air.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.