Dosing system
AssigneeUnilever Home & Personal Care USA, Division of Conopco, Inc.
InventorJeffrey Todd
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
There are practical difficulties in dosing a component of a composition into its container, such as a personal care product into a hand-holdable dispenser on a filling line, due in part to the short time that is available for the operation. The difficulties can be ameliorated or overcome by employing dosing apparatus in which a metering pump feeds a flowable material such a liquid through a dosing nozzle positioned above a container intended to receive a charge, the nozzle having a plurality of individual spouts spaced apart from each other so as to prevent their individual streams coalescing and the spouts extending sufficiently below its support to prevent droplets from adjacent spouts coalescing.
Claims22
A process for introducing a dose of a liquid component into a container having an open mouth comprising the steps of:
- conveying the container to a dosing station,
- retaining the container within the dosing station whilst the dose is introduced into the container and
- thereafter conveying the container away from the dosing station, which station comprises
- a retaining means for the container,
- a dosing head positioned above the retaining means and housing a dosing nozzle oriented downwardly towards the mouth of container,
- the retaining means enabling the nozzle to remain in register with the mouth of the container for a preset period of time,
- an inlet line for the liquid component terminating in the nozzle, and a metering pump mounted within the inlet line;
- actuating the metering pump when the container is retained at the dosing station, thereby
- expelling the liquid component through the filling nozzle in a stream for the pre-set period of time;
- in which process the nozzle is employed in the form of an assembly of individual spouts depending from a support, each of which is spaced from an adjacent spout such that streams of liquid expelled through adjacent individual spouts do not coalesce together, each individual spout projecting beneath the support for such a depth that formation of a droplet by coalescence of liquid between adjacent nozzle tips is hindered or prevented;
- and wherein the nozzle is outside the mouth of the container as the dose of liquid component is introduced into the container.
Apparatus for introducing a determined volume of a liquid component into a container having an open mouth comprising:
- a dosing station which can be located above a conveyor that conveys the container sequential towards and then away from the station, which station comprises
- a retaining means for the container,
- a dosing head positioned above the retaining means and housing a dosing nozzle oriented downwardly towards and above the mouth of container,
- the retaining means enabling the nozzle to remain in register with the mouth of the container for a preset period of time,
- an inlet line for the liquid component terminating in the nozzle, and a metering pump mounted within the inlet line,
- a control means for actuating the metering pump when the container is positioned at the dosing station,
- a means to expel the liquid through the dosing nozzle in the form of a stream in which apparatus the nozzle is employed in the form of an assembly of individual spouts depending from a support, each of which is spaced from an adjacent spout such that streams of liquid expelled through adjacent individual spouts located above the mouth of the container do not coalesce together, each individual spout projecting beneath the support for such a depth that formation of a droplet by coalescence of liquid between adjacent spout tips is hindered or prevented.
A process for introducing a dose of a liguid component into a container having an open mouth comprising the steps of:
- conveying the container to a dosing station.
- retaining the container within the dosing station whilst the dose is introduced into the container and
- thereafter conveying the container away from the dosing station. which station comprises
- a retaining means for the container,
- a dosing head positioned above the retaining means and housing a dosing nozzle oriented downwardly towards the mouth of container,
- the retaining means enabling the nozzle to remain in register with the mouth of the container for a preset period of time,
- an inlet line for the liguid component terminating in the nozzle, and
- a metering pump mounted within the inlet line;
- actuating the metering pump when the container is retained at the dosing station, thereby expelling the liguid component through the filling nozzle in a stream for the pre-set period of time;
- in which process the nozzle is employed in the form of an assembly of individual spouts depending from a support, each of which is spaced from an adjacent spout such that streams of liguid expelled through adjacent individual spouts do not coalesce together, each individual spout projecting beneath the support for such a depth that formation of a droplet by coalescence of liguid between adjacent nozzle tips is hindered or prevented;
- wherein the spouts are arranged in concentric circles.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.