Dispensing – Resilient wall – Nonmetallic
Patent
1996-08-09
1998-10-13
Kaufman, Joseph
Dispensing
Resilient wall
Nonmetallic
220453, 428 365, B65D 3700
Patent
active
058199918
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a bottle-type plastic container made of an expanded plastic material and comprising a dimensionally-resilient shell wall and a metering opening so that manual pressure on the dimensionally-resilient shell wall with one hand results in the dispensing of a liquid product contained in the plastic container.
Such containers are commonly used for liquids which are dispensed in measured quantities by squeezing the container. The containers are made of compact plastic, preferably of polyolefins having a density of approx. 0.9 to 0.97 g/cm .sup.3 As part of the effort to reduce the amount of material used in packaging, an attempt was made to make the wall of the container thinner. Reduction of the amount of material used in packaging is a current goal of ecological policy. A lower input of material contributes to a more favorable ecological balance sheet for the packaging and the product. Packaging must be recycled. The cost of recycling is calculated on the basis of the weight of the input material used for the packaging. The cost of recycling plastic packaging is particularly high. In Germany, for example, these costs are higher than the actual price of the material. However, efforts to reduce the material input in the case of state of the art containers of this kind have hitherto been subject to limits. For example, optimization enabled the weight of a 250 ml bottle to be reduced to a lower limit (material input weight) of 20 g polypropylene. The thickness of the shell wall of this bottle was approximately 0.7 mm. An attempt was made to reduce the material input weight even further to 15 g polypropylene. This resulted in a shell wall thickness of approx. 0.5 mm. In carrying out this and other comparable experiments aimed at reducing the wall thickness it was ascertained that squeezing the bottle to dispense the product resulted in a kinking of the unstable shell wall which adversely affected the elastic resilience and pumping capability of the bottle and rendered it unsightly after a short period of use, which was also highly deleterious to the appeal of the product.
Extrusion blow molded foamed plastic containers (bottles) are also known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,221,954. These, however, have large outlet apertures and a relatively thick shell wall with deformation and elasticity properties that make them unsuitable for measured dispensing by squeezing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is accordingly the aim of the invention to create a container of the above-described kind which, despite a further reduction of material input, does not kink and exhibits a high or equal stability when the shell wall is squeezed for measured dispensing of the contents.
According to the invention, the bottle-type container is made of an expanded plastics material, comprises a dimensionally-resilient shell wall and is provided with a metering opening for metered dispensing of a liquid product contained in the container by applying a manual pressure to the container with one hand, wherein the expanded plastics material is from 10% to 30% less dense than the same plastics material in a non-expanded state, the container has a maximum container volume of 1500 ml and the shell wall has thickness of from 0.5 to 1.5 mm, the thickness being approximately proportional the container volume.
In preferred embodiments of the invention the expanded plastics material is a polyolefin, such as polypropylene or polyethylene (e.g. HDPE) or their copolymerides. The container can be a number of different sizes, for example advantageously it can have a volume of 250 ml and the shell wall approximately 0.7 mm thick, or it can have a volume of 600 ml with a shell wall thickness of about 0.9 mm.
The shell wall can be smooth surfaced. It can be provided with an outer skin composed of the same plastics material as the expanded plastics material or of a different plastics material. A barrier layer, advantageously polyamide or ethylene vinyl alcohol, which provides a barrier to diffusion of gas or fluid can be prov
REFERENCES:
patent: 2758755 (1956-08-01), Schafler
patent: 3221954 (1965-12-01), Lux
patent: 4847148 (1989-07-01), Schirmer
patent: 5108833 (1992-04-01), Noguchi et al.
patent: 5409774 (1995-04-01), Pehlert et al.
Kohn Udo
Steigerwald Franz
Kaufman Joseph
Striker Michael J.
Wella AG
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