GB407672A - Process and apparatus for the sterilised filling of liquids, more especially beverages like beer, fruit juices and the like, into glass bottles having a suitable closure - Google Patents

Abstract

407,672. Sterilizing empty cleaned bottles. SCHLOR, F., Menziken, Switzerland. July 14, 1932, No. 19869. [Class 138 (i).] In a method for sterilizing empty previously cleaned bottles, in which the bottles are subjected to the action of wet steam in a sterilizer, the bottles are conveyed gradually from a cool zone into a region of increasingly hot steam vapours, remain in the hottest steam vapours for a period sufficient to effect sterilization, and are then conducted gradually into a region of increasingly cool steam vapours or cooler air. The method is especially for use with immediately succeeding bottling and bottle-sealing operations. As shown, a conveyer 2 feeds bottles 1 carrying protective cups 5, preferably of magnetizable material or coated with such material, through an opening 9 in a chamber 4 on to trays 11 carried by chains or ropes 10. The bottles are conveyed along the path shown, past the guide-rollers 13-21. Steam jets 91, 92, 93 keep the top of the chamber hot, and a refrigerator, comprising brine-filled pipes 39, keeps the bottom cold, the chamber being divided by baffles 34-38. A blower 25 sucks from the chamber 4, via pipe 24, cooled steam vapours, and from near the workroom ceiling, via pipe 26, steam vapour. This vapour, with cold air from the lower region, is forced into a washer 29 and then, by a blower 32, through a pipe 33 into the lower region, passing between the baffles 36, 37, 38. The bottles are removed through an opening 40 and placed on a conveyer 42 in a cooling tunnel 43, which may be replaced by roofing and to which is supplied cold sterilized air, by pipe 47 from the blower 32, or cold sterilized water. Just after the bottles reach the bottling machine 44, the cups 5 are removed by an electromagnet and returned to the conveyer 2 for re-use. Into the machine 44 and the bottle-sealing machine 48, which have water seals, is blown steam or a steam-air mixture or sterilized air by injector nozzles. Crown corks to be sealed on the bottles are sterilized by a spray of hot steam or a jet of flame.