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Apparatus and methods for controlling atmospheric gas composition within a container

a technology of atmospheric gas composition and container, which is applied in the direction of separation process, transportation and packaging, packaging, etc., can solve the problems of difficult to provide desired environmental conditions for respiring produce, difficult to achieve the desired environmental conditions of respiration, and the loss of oxygen and nitrogen in the container, etc., to achieve the effect of less leakag

Inactive Publication Date: 2014-10-16
MITSUBISHI AUSTRALIA
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention relates to a method for controlling the flow of gas through a membrane element in a container. The method involves a drawing step where gas is introduced through the membrane at a selected flowrate, followed by a holding step where the flow is minimised. The gas flow can be modulated through intermittent operation of the membrane element, and the method can be used with different membranes and gases. The technical effect of the invention is to provide a stable, controlled atmosphere for extending the life of respiring goods in transit. There is also a throttle or choke to increase the pressure and reduce the flaw of gases through the membrane unit. The method can be controlled based on the rate of change of gas flow or the introduction of oxygen from a bottle or ambient air.

Problems solved by technology

However, the use of membrane methods can give rise to partial vacuum conditions inside the container, leading to instability and therefore difficulty in providing desired environmental conditions for the respiring produce.
Further, only certain membranes are useful in providing required permeability to some gases over other gases, and the more commonly available gas separation membranes provide relatively poor selectivity to carbon dioxide.
For example, commercially available PDMS membrane (such as that supplied by Medarray) presents relatively law CO2 / O2 and CO2 / N2 selectivity, meaning that there can be significant loss of oxygen and nitrogen from the container.
This has been found to result in the generation of a partial vacuum within the container, and so significant air make-up is required to counter this loss.
This leads to control instability, or lack of equilibrium and resulting difficulty in controlling the atmosphere.

Method used

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  • Apparatus and methods for controlling atmospheric gas composition within a container
  • Apparatus and methods for controlling atmospheric gas composition within a container
  • Apparatus and methods for controlling atmospheric gas composition within a container

Examples

Experimental program
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example 1

[0104]A test set up has been constructed to demonstrate the effectiveness of a preferred embodiment of the invention, in accordance with FIG. 2. It will be understood by persons skilled in the art that the test set up includes features which would not be required for the invention to function in a commercial embodiment, since certain measurements and functionalities useful for tests are not required in the commercial embodiment.

[0105]In this example, features like those described above are denoted with like numerals.

[0106]The test included a container 110 of 750 L volume, and a 153.1 kg load of bananas 113 disposed in the container 110. The container 110 was refrigerated at about 11° C. The container 110 was disposed in a test laboratory set at about 22° C.

[0107]A controller was provided at 108. The controller 108 was operatively connected to valves 120 and 122 and 124 in the walls of the container, and to a membrane unit 130. Fans 121 and 123 are also provided to force air from the...

example 2

[0127]The above test rig was improved by including a more rigid board to inhibit reduction in volume when a reduction in internal container pressure was experienced.

[0128]The sealing of the test rig was improved so that there was slightly lower leakage. Similar produce at similar stages of ripening were used—green bananas.

[0129]The results of various test runs are shown in FIGS. 15, 16, and 17. In FIG. 17 the earlier test runs were repeated and the results were shown to be repeatable, however, the CO2 level was reduced a lot further than was necessary, so other intermittency runs were conducted—15 / 75, 15 / 300 and the like, all shown in the Figures.

[0130]It should be stressed that although there are simple on-off runs made, this was only for convenience and the pump associated with the membrane unit could easily be run with a variac controller or the late which causes the pump to run at any level intermediate fully on or fully off, and the results will be similar and within the scope ...

example 3

[0131]The examples above have been scaled up and the results repeated for a mathematical model of a standard 40-foot container. The initial conditions were modelled to be a container volume of 67.4 cubic metres; volume of respiring goods 22.5 m5, mass of respiring goods 30 tonnes, selected leakage and respiration rates, and a temperature of 10 degrees Celsius. Further, the membrane constants were input, being selectivity, permeability, and the like. An inlet of atmospheric air was included in the model, of a certain flowrate.

[0132]On one run of the model, the membrane permeability constant was 3250 Barrer for CO2, thickness was 35 μm, membrane permeability constant for Nitrogen was 280 Barrer, membrane permeability constant for Oxygen was 600 Barrer, and for Water vapour it was 36000Barrer.

[0133]The results of the mathematical modelling showed that the system stabilised at generally the same gas composition for the tested model 750 L container when the same respiration rates, temper...

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PUM

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Abstract

A method of controlling gas composition within a container containing respiring produce is described. The container includes at least one gas outlet and at least one gas inlet and the method includes the steps of: drawing gas from within the container through a selective membrane element under selected control conditions through the at least one gas outlet; introducing ambient air from outside die container into the container through the at least one gas inlet under selected control conditions to control the relative composition of gases inside the container. Apparatus for containing the goods and for controlling the atmosphere in the container according to the method are also described.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention relates generally to a method of and apparatus for controlling atmospheric gas composition within a container, and in particular for extending the life of perishable goods, for example during transport.BACKGROUND OF INVENTION[0002]In this specification, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date:[0003]part of common general knowledge; or[0004]known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which this specification is concerned.[0005]In order to prolong the storage life of perishable goods (such as fruit and vegetables) stored in containers during for transportation or storage it is generally important to control atmospheric conditions within the container. This is because atmospheric parameters, for example temperature and atmospheric gas composition within ...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): B65D81/20
CPCB65D81/2076B01D53/22B01D53/30B01D63/02B01D2256/22B01D2257/104A23L3/3418A23B7/148
Inventor SAVUR, SANJAYCAILLON, MAGALIJONE, LEEJORDAN, RODNEY
Owner MITSUBISHI AUSTRALIA
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