Patent Application
20240138446
This invention relates to food preservation.
Oxygen can be removed from a container in which fruits and vegetables are stored in order to extend their shelf lives. Not only does this process reduce ripening of the produce but it also greatly reduces the growth of aerobic bacteria, (bacteria requiring oxygen to grow). However, anaerobic bacteria (grow in oxygen free environments) such as botulism and listeria can continue their growth and actually prefer an oxygen deprived environment. Although these types of bacteria are rare, they can make humans quite ill, and in some cases cause death, especially to children and pregnant women. Also, aerobic bacteria will again grow once the oxygen is reintroduced.
Some bacteria when subjected to changes in their environment, such as oxygen levels, can produce spores, which when again exposed to a conducive environment will become active as full-blown bacteria. Although the bacteria might be destroyed, these spores in some cases can withstand up to four hours in boiling water. Therefore, it is advantageous to destroy the bacteria from the onset.
In some implementations, a system for removing oxygen from a container includes a recirculation pump, an oxygen removal device, and an anti-bacterial system. The recirculation pump includes an intake and a discharge. The oxygen removal device receives the discharge and then injected into the container. The anti-bacterial destroys bacteria through introducing UV light or ozone in the system.
The disinfectant enhancement of the present disclosure offers advantages over the previous oxygen deprived system. As described, it has the distinct advantage of significantly reducing the number of or destroying bacteria, both aerobic and anaerobic, prior to or during the food preservation process. The ozone (O3) generation described is of particular commercial value due to its ease of generation, potency in destroying bacteria, and environmental friendliness. The combination of the oxygen deprivation and bacteria destruction will further enhance the shelf life of vegetables and fruit or other organic material.
This system could be delivered along the food chain from the farm, through distribution, retail and ultimately home or retail use. This capability will be highly valued in both established as well as emerging markets. Secondly, there are no burdensome chemical containers or tanks that continually need to be refilled and/or transported. Thirdly, the amount of disinfectant, such UV light and/or O3 exposure, and oxygen level of the container can be controlled with no external intervention. Fourthly, the cost is quite reasonable. Finally, all byproducts of the process allowing for the discharge of the oxygen back into the environment is politically, commercially and environmentally correct, and very advantageous from a marketing and operational perspective. The details of one or more implementations are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.
Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.
As illustrated, the system 100 includes a circulating system 102 that extracts oxygen from air resulting in an inert gas or substantially inert gas in an atmospheric pressure environment. The circulating systems 102 includes a circulating pump 104 and a canister 106 filled with oxygen reducing material (one time disposable or rechargeable multi use material) from which the oxygen-reduced gas is pumped into the enclosed container 108, which includes, for example, food, bottled goods, clothes, or other items. As previously mentioned, the UV source 110 in the container 108 reduces or destroys bacteria. The gas from the container 108 is circulated through the air pump 104 and the oxygen removal 106 into the container 108, and UV source 110 exposes the specific container 108 to UV light. These processes may be continuous, intermittent (e.g., periodically) and/or in response to an event (e.g., insertion of the container 108). The system 100 include an oxygen reducing material, other techniques not yet known could be developed in the future and subsequently applied to the proposed system 100. These might be vacuum based or electric field based as examples. The UV source 110 may be any source of UV without departing from the scope of the disclosure.
The recirculation and UV exposure can provide multiple advantages. First, the oxygen removal in the container 108 will not be 100% efficient for any practical system. If only a portion of the oxygen is removed as it passes through the container 108, a lower limit of a final oxygen content in the container 108 can be set. In addition, the UV exposure may not destroy all bacteria and still provide a longer shelf life for consumables.
The system 100 can be closed to more efficiently use the oxygen absorbing material and reduce the introduction of additional bacteria. When recycling the gas through the canister 108, less oxygen is typically removed with each cycle. No matter how many times the cycle is performed, the amount of oxygen removed is from the original 20% of the container 108. That said, the container 108 may have insignificant leaks that contribute additional oxygen to the system 100. To be technically accurate, due to pressure equalization (final pressure of container to be approximately atmospheric), the amount of oxygen removed can equal to about 25% of the original volume of air. In addition, exposing the air and contents to UV light will reduce bacteria as long as the UV source 110 is active.
In some implementations, the oxygen removal material (ORM) can be rechargeable. In some instances, the ORM can be treated with perhaps heat or UV so that the oxygen is released and then the ORM is reused to remove oxygen again. In these instances, the recharging can occur within the system 100.
In some aspects of operation, the circulation system 102 removes air from the container 108 using the pump 104, which injects the removed air into the oxygen removal system 106. The pump 104 further injects the oxygen-reduced air into the container 108. The UV source 110 generates UV light in the container 108 to reduce or otherwise eliminate bacteria in the air and/or on the contents. While the UV source 110 is in the container 108, the UV source 110 may be located, for example, in the circulation system 102 prior to or after the oxygen removal 106 without departing from the scope of the disclosure. The UV source 110 may also be configured in parallel to the oxygen removal system 106.
A more favorable chemical is ozone (O3) which has the advantage of breaking down into oxygen (O2), which is obviously environmentally safe. Also, O3 is quite active and at levels of only 10 parts per million (PPM) can destroy 99.9999% of the exposed bacteria in under 8 minutes. Such a small amount of O3 with its half-life of 12 hours has almost no effect on the low oxygen concentration in the container. Typical oxygen levels of 0.5% used in the preservation process may only increase to 0.501% with the complete decay of all O3 from an initial level of 10 PPM. Another advantage of O3 is that it can be generated from the O2 in the circulated air by subjecting the molecules to a strong electric field, which can be done very inexpensively. In other words, the disinfectant 202 may generate O3 from existing O2 in the system 200. While the disinfectant 202 operates in parallel to the oxygen removal 106, the disinfectant 202 may be located in serial with the oxygen removal 106 such as before or after.
Proper controls could be implemented in order to optimize performance of the system 300. As an example, the system 300 can be set to run for a given period of time. With different size containers, the operator can select a container size or simply allow the system 300 to run for extended periods of time (e.g., minutes, hours) to most or all the oxygen. The schemes presented are in no means the only way of introducing a disinfectant such O3 into the food preservation container 108 but are only shown as examples. In some implementations, O3 generator 202 along with the appropriate hardware would add less than $10 to the overall system 300.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/140,144, filed on Jan. 21, 2021, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/US2022/013419 | 1/21/2022 | WO |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63140144 | Jan 2021 | US |
