To sterilize a lower face of a container in contact with a transfer mechanism for enabling an external face to be completely sterilized by providing a container hold and transfer mechanism for holding the container with a lower end in a free state in contact with an upper end of the container and a sterilizing mechanism for spraying sterilizer toward an outer peripheral face of the container.
A suction pad 44 is provided on a container carry-in chamber 30, an upper face of a container 1 is suction-held with its lower end free to lower the container 1 in an axial direction, and the container 1 is transferred through an opening 42 into a sterile chamber 10. At this time, a hydrogen peroxide spray nozzle 51 constituting a sterilizing mechanism provided in the container carry-in chamber 30 is placed above the opening 42 and at a lower position than a bottom of the container 1, wherein hydrogen peroxide gas sprayed from the nozzle 51 is sprayed not only to a peripheral face of the container 1 but also to a bottom face for sterilization. Thereafter the container 1 is lowered, thereby spraying hydrogen peroxide gas from the nozzle 51 onto the entire outer peripheral face of the container 1.
UCHIYAMA HIROMITSU
KAWAJI SATSUKI
MATSUMOTO YASUAKI
OKADA HIROTO
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