Patent Application
20140223953
The demand for keeping beverages cold is not new. As consumers became more mobile and beverages were consumed on the go, the demand for keeping beverages at a refreshing temperature without inhibiting mobility grew. Subsequently, the market for beverage coolers also grew.
Early proposed solutions consisted of an insulating device designed to increase the time in which a cold beverages reaches ambient temperature. One problem with the early designs is that the beverage had to be cold prior to using previously proposed designs and the device would keep beverages cool for a relatively short period of time.
Subsequently, several different designs were proposed to reduce the beverage temperature while maintaining beverage container mobility. Tannenbaum discloses a complex device which can cool beverages below that of ambient temperature; however, the device is relatively expensive to manufacture, restricted to the beverage container it was constructed within, and is a single use device. Similarly, the device proposed by Purser is a complex and single use device.
The design proposed by Haines-Keeley et al. discloses an expandable beverage cooler. While addressing the problem of varying container sizes, the complex construction is expensive to build, is very limited in its expandability and still requires a beverage to be cold prior to using the device.
In the device proposed by Casey, not only must the beverage be cold prior to using the device, but the device described in the claims is for a single diameter beverage container and is not adjustable.
Several types of beverage coolers have been proposed, but all heretofore known suffer from one or more of the following disadvantages:
In accordance with one embodiment an evaporative cooling device for cooling beverage containers comprises a flexible body, a plurality of cooling chambers containing refrigerant, a passage for holding a beverage container, and a self-adjusting open end.
Accordingly several advantages of one or more aspects are as follows: to provide a beverage container cooler that continuously cools a beverage for many hours and even days, that is highly portable, that accommodates a wide array of beverage container sizes, that requires no power source to provide cooling, that is easily manufactured, that is reusable, and that is easy to use. Other advantages of one or more aspects will be apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.
With reference to the accompanying drawings and specifically
The body is generally tube-like in appearance, with openings 14 and 16 at opposed ends. In cooperation with the inner walls of body 12, openings 14 and 16 create a passage 20 through which a beverage container B can be inserted, as shown in
As shown in longitudinal cross sectional view
As shown in the longitudinal cross sectional view of
The evaporative cooler 10 achieves cooling through the process of evaporative cooling facilitated by refrigerant 22. Comprised of super absorbent polymer (SAP) crystals, refrigerant 22 is hydrated by soaking evaporative cooler 10 briefly in water. Water is absorbed by refrigerant, which becomes gel-like after hydration. Evaporative cooler 10 can be applied to a beverage container either prior to or after hydrating refrigerant 22.
To apply evaporative cooler 10, the top portion of conventional beverage container B is inserted into opening 16 and through passage 20 until the top portion of beverage container B protrudes through opening 14, as shown in the cross sectional view shown in
As beverage cooler 10 is applied to beverage container B, annular elastic material 30 encased in cavity 28 located at opening 14 expands to the perimeter of beverage container B. Due to length of elastic 30 being adjacent to annular compartments 24 a greater portion of the beverage container B is covered by annular compartments 24 exposing less of container B to higher ambient temperatures, resulting in a greater cooling effect being achieved.
As shown in
From the description above, a number of advantages of some embodiments of my evaporative cooling device for beverage containers become evident:
Thus the reader will see that at least one embodiment provides an effective, versatile evaporative cooler 10 that will provide a cooling effect as long as refrigerant 22 is hydrated, which can last anywhere from several hours to several days. This is advantageous for activities such as hiking, camping, and biking when refrigeration isn't readily available. This embodiment provides a lightweight, portable device that provides continuous cooling, while being inexpensive to manufacture.
While my above description contains many specificities, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope, but rather as an exemplification of one embodiment thereof. Many other variations are possible. For example, the number of annular compartments 24 can be more or less or situated horizontally or vertically. The composition of refrigerant 22 can be other highly absorbent polymer based on the latest chemical technologies. Another variation would replace the elastic in the upper opening with a drawstring. Another variation would eliminate the elastic at the upper opening, relying solely on annular compartments 24 to hold this embodiment to a beverage container.
Accordingly, the scope should be determined not by the embodiment illustrated, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents.
