Sterilizing Packaged Consumer Goods via Diffusion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for sterilizing packaged or partially packaged consumer goods, such as opening and closing elements for beverage or food packaging, often fail to ensure long-term sterility due to contamination risks during transport and storage, leading to suboptimal sterility rates, especially when these elements are exposed to vegetative microorganisms and their spores.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a collection container filled with a treatment agent, such as hydrogen peroxide, where the consumer goods are sealed for a predetermined time to achieve diffusion-based sterilization, ensuring that the packaged or partially packaged goods are sterilized before use, without the need for active removal of the disinfectant, and using a load carrier treated with a sufficient amount of sterilizing agent to prevent contamination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If sterilization is performed immediately before filling using direct application of disinfectant, then sterility is achieved, but contamination risk increases during transport and storage
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary sterilization action by treating the consumer goods with disinfectant during the packaging process, sealing them in a collection container with additional disinfectant, and maintaining sterility throughout transport and storage. This allows sterilization to occur before the filling operation, eliminating the need for immediate pre-filling sterilization and thereby preventing contamination during the transport and storage periods.
2Productivity
If large quantities of consumer goods are sterilized together, then productivity increases, but ensuring uniform sterilization becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses the collection container as an intermediary system that facilitates uniform sterilization of large quantities of consumer goods. The container is filled with disinfectant and sealed, creating a controlled environment where the disinfectant can uniformly contact all goods through diffusion and capillary action, ensuring consistent sterilization across large batches while maintaining high productivity.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If disinfectant residues are completely removed, then safety increases, but sterilization effectiveness may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a disposable collection container system that is used once for sterilization and then discarded. This allows for aggressive sterilization with high concentrations of disinfectant without concern for residue on reusable equipment, as the entire container and its contents are disposed of after single use, ensuring both sterilization effectiveness and safety.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This method effectively achieves long-term sterilization of consumer goods, ensuring they are sterile upon arrival at the filling machine, with a high sterility rate and compliance with legal requirements regarding disinfectant residues, even for large quantities of opening and closing elements, by using a controlled diffusion process without reaction accelerators.
Implementation Method 1
a predetermined quantity of treatment agent is introduced into the collection container by spraying, pouring or loading a load carrier which has been treated with a sufficient amount of treatment agent, so that diffusion of the treatment agent also sterilizes the packaged consumer goods or sealed areas of the consumer goods
Data Source
Figure 1~1A
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AI summary
Illustrated and described are a method for sterilizing packaged or partially packaged or partially closed consumer goods (3), such as, in particular, plastics opening and/or closing elements for subsequent use with beverage or food packs, by means of a treatment agent having a disinfecting agent, and collecting containers (1) and overpacks usable therefor. In order to configure and develop the abovementioned method for sterilizing packaged or partially packaged or partially closed consumer goods (3) by means of a treatment agent having a disinfecting agent, such that contamination of the consumer goods (3) with colony-forming spores is reliably precluded even in packaged or closed areas, provision is made for a consumer good (3) to be sterilized or a region of a consumer good (3) that is to be sterilized to be arranged in a first closed-off environment, for a multiplicity of such individually packaged consumer goods (3) or closed regions of consumer goods (3) to be stored together in a collecting container (1) for a predetermined amount of time, and for the inside of the collecting container (1) to be charged with a predetermined quantity of the treatment agent, such that even the packaged consumer goods (3) or closed regions of the consumer goods (3) are sterilized by diffusion of the treatment agent. Thus, "long-term sterilization" can be achieved, in which the sterilization of the consumer goods (3) to be treated takes place prior to the final use thereof.