Package making – Methods – With contents treating
Patent
1999-01-15
2000-11-07
Johnson, Linda
Package making
Methods
With contents treating
53510, 53167, 7386381, 7386385, B65B 3102
Patent
active
061419400
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a device permitting continuous control of the contents of containers comprising a can body hermetically sealed by a lid crimped onto it.
The device can advantageously be used to control the stability of preserve cans belonging to one batch and prepared at the same time as one another in the same process, and, generally, to check the stability of products subjected to a thermal treatment conferring on them biological stability at ambient intermediate-storage temperature.
In order to guarantee consumer safety, the Authorities require that preserves be subjected to very strict controls, in particular defined by the AFNOR standards NFV 08 401 and NFV 08 402.
Those controls, which aim to check the consumable nature of preserves, basically involve placing several cans or jars from the same batch in an oven at a temperature favouring the development of micro-organisms, and then analysing their contents, after opening them, at the end of a specific incubation period.
Those analyses, which are especially measurements of differences in pH, are carried out in each case on a series of at least three cans, namely a control can, a can which has been incubated for seven days at 55.degree. C. and a can which has been incubated for seven days at 37.degree. C. or for twenty-one days at 32.degree. C.
When the measured difference in pH is less than 0.5 and if no change in appearance or texture is detected, the preserve is considered to be stable and perfectly consumable; if this is not the case, the preserve is declared to be unfit for consumption and the entire batch has to be thrown away.
Under those conditions, and except where a deformation (swelling) of the analysed preserve cans is observed after emission of carbon dioxide due to microbe proliferation, the deterioration in the preserve cans is not detected until the end of the eighth or twenty-second day. This leads to obvious problems of loss and stock management.
In order to overcome that disadvantage, the document FR-A-93 12 829 has already proposed a device permitting continuous control of the contents of preserve cans in order to check the consumable nature thereof by collecting gases in the container or in the can without having to open it.
The prior art device comprises the following elements: series to be controlled are equipped and which is to undergo the same operations of crimping onto a can body after the latter has been filled, then autoclaving and preserving, but which is pierced, especially at its median portion, by an opening which is preferably circular, opening in such a manner as to maintain a set of sealing joints and to delimit a control chamber which can be isolated, on the one hand, from the inside of the preserve can and, on the other hand, from the external medium. which is permeable to gases but impermeable to micro-organisms and especially to pathogenic germs, namely, on the one hand, a lower cell or receiving cell and, on the other hand, an upper cell or collecting cell, respect to the inside of the preserve can to be broken in order to allow any gases emitted there to penetrate into the receiving cell, and external medium, after the lid has been crimped onto the previously filled can body and during the autoclaving and preserving operations.
According to that prior publication, the sealing means comprise a sealing joint which is generally produced from silicone and which is to be pierced by a needle connected to continuous analysis devices in order to permit the collection of gases, especially carbon dioxide, which have penetrated into the control chamber after the impermeability has been broken.
Experience has shown that that configuration is not without disadvantages, bearing in mind that the piercing of the sealing joint often causes the needle to become blocked owing to the penetration of fragments of seal into its internal duct.
In addition, contamination of the filtering membrane has also been observed when the needle has been inserted too deeply.
A first aim of the invention is to overcome those disadv
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patent: 5822951 (1998-10-01), Rosik
AES Laboratoire, Societe Anonyme Ayant Son Siege Social
Johnson Linda
Schacht Michael R.
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