Patent Application
20060108366
1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air-tight container, and more particularly relates to an air-tight container comprising a sealing assembly over a lid, wherein the sealing assembly can be pressed down by a hand towards an air-releasing passage of the lid to release air from the air-tight container or allow air to enter into the air-tight container, and the air-tight container is sealed when the sealing assembly returns back to its original position when the hand is released from the sealing assembly.
2. Description of Related Art
With the advancement technologies, life of people has greatly improved, many people take work as priority and therefore are very busy with work and have very little time for other daily routine work. For convenience, many people usually store food at home. Even though the modern technology provides refrigerator for users to preserve different kinds of food, there are several types of items that need special care for storage thereof, such as bead type of food such as green beans, red beans, soy beans, peanuts and the like, or powder type of food such as flour, sugar, coffee and the like, need to be packed individually before being preserved in the food cabinet. And, there are some other items that need to be preserved in a dry condition and keep out the moisture. Usually, the moisture makes the food out of the quality when people use paper pack to pack the food as the paper pack cannot provide adequate packaging condition for storing food for a longer period, and therefore, paper pack is not suitable for preserving food. There are plastic or glass containers with lids available for storing food where the food can be conveniently put in or removed there-from. However, the plastic or glass containers do not provide effective preservation of food due to inadequate sealing and therefore moisture could penetrate into the containers. Some proposed packing the desiccating agent packet into the containers for better preservation of food therein, however, the damaged/broken desiccating agent packet may undesirably contaminate the food.
Therefore, the above conventional containers still need improvement for improving the preservation of food therein.
Accordingly, in the view of the foregoing, the present inventor makes a detailed study of related art to evaluate and consider, and uses years of experience in this field, and through several experiments, to create an air-tight container comprising a sealing assembly that can be disposed over a lid thereof, wherein the sealing assembly can be pressed down by a hand towards the air-releasing passage of the lid to release air from the air-tight container or allow air to enter into the air-tight container, and the air-tight container is sealed when the sealing assembly returns back to its original position when the hand is released from the sealing assembly.
According to an aspect of the present invention, the lid of the air-tight container comprises an air-releasing passage, and a sealing assembly is disposed in the air-releasing passage of the lid. The sealing assembly comprises an axle protruding from a bottom side thereof, wherein an end portion of the axle comprises an indentation. A resilient element is disposed around the axle of the sealing assembly surrounding the axle of the sealing assembly. A sealing pad is disposed in the indentation of the axle. The sealing assembly is positioned in the air-releasing passage of the lid. The resilient element surrounding the axle of the sealing assembly is disposed between the top surface of the lid and the bottom side of the sealing assembly such that the resilient element will allow the sealing assembly to elastically move up and down in a vertical direction in the air-releasing passage of the lid. The lid is placed on top of the body of the air-tight container such that a plastic ring disposed in a indented groove at a bottom portion of the lid is adopted to tightly abut against the inner sidewalls of the air-tight container to substantially seal between the lid and the body of the air-tight container.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the sealing assembly is a T-shaped structure and the sealing pad disposed in the indentation in the bottom end portion of the axle is adopted to seal between the interior of the lid of the air-tight container and the air-releasing passage of the lid.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the air-releasing passage of the lid comprises an air-sealing hole on the top surface of the lid within the air-releasing passage in which the axle of the sealing assembly axially moves down under an external force applied thereto to release air from the interior of the air-tight container and also allow air to enter into the interior of the air-tight container, and return back to its original position when the external force is released to seal the interior of the air-tight container.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention, reference will now be made to the following detailed description of preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the following accompanying drawings.
Reference will be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
Referring to
The lid 2 comprises an inlaying portion 21 having an indented groove 211. A plastic ring 22 is disposed in the indented groove 211, and the indented groove 211 is adapted for retaining the plastic ring 22. The inlaying portion 21 of the lid 2 comprises a buckling portion 212 having a sloped edge portion 2121 at a bottom flange thereof. Furthermore, a top portion of the lid 2 comprises an air-releasing passage 23 and an air-sealing hole 231 with a comparatively smaller diameter formed at a bottom of the air-releasing passage 23, and the air-sealing hole 231 comprises a sloped-edge face 232 at a bottom thereof. The air-releasing hole 231 communicates between the air-releasing passage 23 and the interior of the lid 2.
A sealing assembly 3 comprises a T-shape sealing valve 31 having an axle 311 with smaller diameter protruding from a bottom thereof, wherein the axle 311 comprises an indentation 312 at a bottom end portion thereof. A sealing pad 33 is disposed in the indentation 312, and the indentation 312 is adapted for retaining the sealing pad 33 therein. The axle 311 is surrounded by a resilient element 32.
Now referring to
When the hand is released from the lid 2, the resilient element 32 of the sealing assembly 3 positioned above the lid 2 is returns to its original shape and position and thereby restore the sealing valve 31 to its original position. Thus, the sealing pad 33 of the axle 311 of the sealing valve 31 will retract and tightly abut between the sloped edge face 232 and the air-sealing hole 231 to seal the receiving space 11 of the body 1 and make the receiving space 11 in an air-tight condition.
Furthermore, the receiving space 11 of the body 1 comprises a receiving groove 111 for receiving a chemical agent packet 4 therein, for example, desiccating agent, and a plate 5 is disposed over the chemical agent packet 4 so that food can be placed and stored in an air-tight condition within the receiving space 11 of the body 1 and can be separated from the chemical agent packet 4.
Referring to
The body 1 and the lid 2 are made of plastic material, and the lid 2 can be used to cover onto or release from the receiving space 11 of the body 1 repeatedly.
To separate the lid 2 from the body 1, preferably, the body 1 can be positioned at an angle, approximately 45°, with a hand pressing down the sealing assembly 3 above the lid 2 to let the air enter into the receiving space 11 of the body 1 and separate the lid 2 from the receiving space 11 of the body 1.
Referring to
Now referring to
While the invention has been described in conjunction with a specific best mode, it is to be understood that many alternatives, modifications, and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description. Accordingly, it is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications, and variations in which fall within the spirit and scope of the included claims. All matters set forth herein or shown in the accompanying drawings are to be interpreted in an illustrative and non-limiting sense.
