AZARZAR, Yosef (Gilboa street, Airport City, Bwn-Gurion Airport, 70100, IL)
SAT, Zemer (Gilboa Street, Airport City, Ben-Gurion Airport, 70100, IL)
AZARZAR, Yosef (Gilboa street, Airport City, Bwn-Gurion Airport, 70100, IL)
CLAIMS
1. A dishwashable bottle for repeated use in a high-pressure carbonated beverage maker for home use, said bottle being made of a flexible polymer, resisting permanent deformation when subjected to a pressure of 14 bar, and further resisting deformation and degradation when immersed in boiling water for one hour, both with and without the presence of a detergent, at atmospheric pressure.
2. The bottle as claimed in claim 1, but excluding the bottle base and the bottle closure, being made of unalloyed polyethylene naphthalate (PEN).
3. The bottle as claimed in claim 1, further provided with an adhesively-joined base.
4. The bottle as claimed in claim 1, further provided with a gas-tight screw-on closure holding a resilient seal washer.
5. A dishwashable bottle for use in a high-pressure carbonated beverage maker for home use, substantially as described hereinbefore and with reference to the accompanying drawings. |
DISHWASHABLE BOTTLE DESCRIPTION TECHNICAL FBELD:
Pressure resistant dishwashable plastic bottles for domestic usage.
The present invention relates to a multi-use beverage bottle to be used by consumer to prepare carbonated beverages which may repeatedly be subjected to high internal pressure, can be used to store and serve cold drinks, and after use can be repeatedly cleaned in a domestic dishwasher without being damaged or deformed thereby.
BACKGROUND ART:
Beverage makers are known to transform CO 2 which is stored in liquid form, into CO 2 gas, which is released into a bottle containing tap water, the bottle being loaded into the beverage maker to carbonate the water producing sparkling drinks. The bottle is thus pressurized to between 10 - 14 bar. Flavoring and other components such as sweeteners or sugar, or food additives may be added later to the carbonated water to create a flavored beverage.
More recently devices have been developed wherein the consumer prepares carbonated drinks in a bottle, which is pressurized during and after preparation of the beverage. The user fills the bottle with water, carbonizes the water and adds flavoring as explained previously. The bottle must be securely closed when not in use to prevent the escape of the carbon dioxide gas.
After the home-made sweetened beverage has been consumed it its desirable that the bottle be prepared for reuse. Due to the sugar or artificial sweetener which was contained in the beverage, the bottle needs to be cleaned in hot water at a temperature of about 75°C. to ensure that all remnants of the sweeteners have been dissolved and removed from the bottle.
The gas used for carbonizing the water in the bottle is supplied from an interchangeable cylinder fitted to the beverage maker. A valve is provided to control
the flow of gas from said cylinder into the bottle, the gas enters the water in the bottle which is now subjected to internal pressure.
In Israel Patent no. 95,413 to Wiseburgh et al., the inventors claim a beverage maker which provides complete safety when plastic bottles are used. The beverage maker is arranged to reject and not pressurize dimensionally defective bottles either in size or in contour.
Prior art bottles which were essential for the safe operation of the beverage maker described in the 95,413 patent needed to be ductile in order to adapt their profile to resist a pressure level reached prior to the opening of the valves described in this patent.
Although glass bottles had been used to market carbonated beverages for many years, a few well-published accidents brought about the entry of the thin- wall Polyethylene teraphtalate (PET) bottle.
The PET bottle performed efficiently in combination with the beverage maker and had an average life of 36 months from date of manufacture, provided it was not subjected to a temperature exceeding about 40 0 C such as found in an automatic domestic dishwashing machine. Users were warned by the manufacturers not to place the bottles into a dishwasher. Those not interested in washing the bottle for reuse are likely to dispose of same as refuse with all the detrimental effects on the environment resulting therefrom.
PET was found to be satisfactory in many applications and most soft drinks are packaged in PET bottles. The major disadvantage of PET is that it loses its ductility, becomes brittle at the temperature found in domestic dish washing machines which causes it to yield even to low pressure and consequently to fail. Many users do however wish to wash these bottles in such machines, but are warned by the manufacturers not to do so. Those not interested in washing the bottle for reuse are likely to dispose thereof as refuse, with all the ecological consequences entailed thereby.
There was thus a clear and defined need for a bottle which, in addition to meeting all other requirements could be cleaned in a domestic dishwasher.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION:
It is therefore one of the objects of the present invention to obviate the limitations of prior art beverage bottles and to provide a plastic bottle which retains all its required properties even after repeated cleaning in a domestic dishwasher.
It is a further object of the present invention to achieve this without any substantial increase either in weight or in cost.
The present invention achieves the above objects by providing a dishwashable bottle for repeated use in a high-pressure carbonated beverage maker for home use. Said bottle being made of a flexible polymer resisting permanent deformation when subjected to a pressure of 14 bar, and further resisting deformation and degradation when immersed in boiling water for one hour, both with and without the presence of a detergent, at atmospheric pressure.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention there is provided a bottle, which, excluding the bottle base and the bottle closure, is made of unalloyed polyethylene naphthalate (PEN).
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS:
In the drawings:
FIG. 1 is a partially serrated elevational view of a preferred embodiment of the bottle according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is another partially serrated elevational view of the bottle further provided with a gas-tight screw-on closure holding a resilient seal washer;
and
FiG. 3 is an elevational view of the bottle further provided with an adhesively-joined base.
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION:
The accompanying drawings represent by example the preferred embodiments of the invention. Structural details are shown only as far as necessary for a fundamental understating thereof. The described examples, together with the drawings, will make apparent to those skilled in the art how further forms of the invention may be realized.
The scope of the described invention is intended to include all embodiments coming within the meaning of the following claims. The foregoing examples illustrate useful forms of the invention, but are not to be considered as limiting its scope, as those skilled in the art will be aware that additional variants and modifications of the invention can readily be formulated without departing from the meaning of the following claims.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY:
The present invention provides a reusable dishwashable bottle which may be industrially produced in a variety of available injection blow molding machines which are capable of using PEN (polyethylene naphthalate) to produce bottles at an industrial rate.
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