Self-Cooling Beverage Container With Evacuated Refrigerant Receiving Chamber

The present invention refers to the canning and storage of all types of beverages within the food and beverage industries and, more particularly, it relates to a beverage container having an integral cooling system which permits the reduction of the temperature of the beverage contained in the container without the need of an external cooling source.

It is very well known that at the present time the storage, transportation and consumption of cans for containing food-type and refreshing beverages such as fruit and vegetable juices, dairy liquid or pasty products, soft drinks, beers and the like, is a very important and popular economical activity throughout the world. Canned beverages, on the other hand, have a very practical usefulness in the art, due to the advantages shown thereby for their transportation and handling, which permits persons of all ages to easily handle this type of containers without running the risk of accidental breakage such as is common practice when handling glass containers or bottles.

However, the above described type of containers or cans show the serious drawback that they are highly heat conducting devices that do not assist in maintaining a suitable temperature for the contents thereof which may be appealing to the consumer of canned beverages, particularly when said cans have been exposed for a considerable period of time to hot weather or the mere solar radiation, for which reason said canned beverages must be subjected to a suitable cooling process before consumption thereof, either by direct or indirect contact with ice or by using a refrigeration device. This may prove to be rather difficult in places with low population as well as in remote locations such as secondary roads and the like, where it is practically impossible to have enough availability of ice or other refrigeration means. This, in turn, forces the consumers to necessarily consume the canned beverages at the ambient temperature that, in most of these cases, is unduly hot to provide a tasty and refreshing beverage.

On the other hand, in remote or semi-wild areas where the availability of electrical energy is scarce or practically inexistent or in areas populated by low income people who find it rather difficult to purchase a refrigerator, the problem of being forced to consume all types of canned beverages at ambient temperature remains, and in these areas the said beverages have to be consumed at temperatures that do not aid to render said canned beverages a tasty and refreshing article of consumption, thus defeating their main purpose, namely, that of being palatable and refreshing.

Although workers in the art have proposed various solutions to the above described problems, all of them have involved the use of external cooling, that is, cooling of the canned beverages by the application of ice externally thereof, for instance, in small and economical thermally insulated receptacles and the like, which devices only partially solve the problem because the same will remain for areas where no ice is available. To the applicant knowledge, no solution for cooling a canned beverage by means of internal cooling within the can has ever been proposed.

Having in mind the defects of the prior art cooling systems for canned beverages, it is an object of the present invention to provide a container for canning, storing and expending beverages, that will permit to cool said beverages without the need of external cooling.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a container for beverages of the above mentioned character, which will be of a very simple construction and will cool the beverage contained therein by a simple and fast operation.

One other object of the present invention is to provide a container for beverages of the above described character, which will be economical and absolutely safe for being handled and stored.

One other and more particular object of the present invention is to provide a container for beverages of the above character, which will permit the cooling of the beverage at the time of consumption thereof, without the need of using external cooling systems.

The foregoing objects and others ancillary thereto are preferably accomplished as follows:

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a can type container for beverages is provided with an internal cooling system which comprises a first compartment within the container suitable for containing a refrigerant fluid under relatively high pressure, a second compartment within the container suitable for containing air under reduced pressure or a vacuum, said second compartment being attached to said first compartment but separated therefrom by means of a partition, and a partition breaking device actuatable from the outside of the container for either breaking said partition or punching an orifice in said partition to permit the refrigerant fluid to flash towards and expand into said second compartment which is under reduced pressure, thus producing a decrease in the temperature of the beverage contained in the container which is in direct contact with the walls of said compartments.

The novel features that are to be considered characteristic of the present invention are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, both as to its organization and its method of operation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will best be understood from the following description of a specific embodiment when read in connection with the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a cross sectional elevational view of a can type container for beverages having an integral cooling system built in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross sectional elevational view of a can type container for beverages having an integral cooling system built in accordance with a second embodiment of the present invention.

Having now more particular reference to the drawings and more particularly to FIG. 1 thereof, there is shown a can type container for beverages identified by the general reference numeral 1, which includes an integral cooling or refrigerating system built in accordance with a specific embodiment of the present invention and which essentially comprises a preferably cylindrical wall 8 provided with a frusto conical top section 9, a flat top or cover 10 which normally has means for opening the container, and a flat bottom 11, said container 1 comprising a first compartment 2 for containing the beverage, a second compartment 3 separated from compartment 2 by means of a convex wall 5 preferably arranged adjacent to the bottom 11 of the container 1, such that the peripheries of both said bottom 11 and said convex wall 5 be coincident, said second compartment 3 being provided for containing a non-toxic non-flammable commercial refrigerant fluid under high pressure, and a third internal compartment 4 which comprises a cylindrical wall 12 of a diameter which is much smaller than the diameter of the cylindrical wall 8 of the container 1, concentrically arranged thereto, and a flat top 13 to hermetically separate said compartment 4 from the compartment 2 which contains the beverage. The third compartment 4 is preferably provided with air under reduced pressure, either partial or complete vacuum and the bottom thereof is arranged over the central portion of the wall 5 of compartment 3 and hermetically attached thereto, such that compartments 3 and 4 be separated by means of a portion of said wall 5 which therefore forms a partition 6 between both compartments for a purpose which will be clearly explained hereinbelow.

A punching device 7 is provided such that the base 14 thereof be hermetically attached to the bottom 11 of the container 1 which at the same time forms the bottom of the compartment 3 and its sharp upper end 15 be directly in contact or abutting against the central point of the partition 6. By this arrangement, the punching device 7 may be pushed upwardly from the outside of the container by pushing said punching device together with the bottom 11 of the container so as to perforate an orifice through partition 6, the central section of which may be previously weakened for this purpose, in order to permit the flashing and expansion of the refrigerant fluid contained in compartment 3 into compartment 4 which is under reduced pressure. The refrigerant fluid, due to the thermodynamic (adiabatic) expansion suffered, is flashed or evaporated thus reducing the temperature at the expense of the heat contained in the environment, whereby in a very short time the temperatures will tend to reach to a stable equilibrium in the whole system, by which reason the expanded gas produced by the refrigerant fluid will tend to absorb heat from the beverage until the temperature of the three compartments 2, 3 and 4 is thermodynamically in equilibrium.

FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment of the present invention wherein the same reference numerals used in FIG. 1 designate similar parts. The integral cooling system in the instance of the embodiment shown in FIG. 2 is arranged such that the second compartment 3 is attached to the top 10 of the container 1 and the third compartment 4 is an extension of said second compartment 3, said compartment 4 being closed at its bottom by means of an integral cover 13. Compartment 4 is separated from compartment 3 by means of a rupturable partition 6. A partition breaking device 7 is arranged through the wall of compartment 3 and comprises a lever 18 which actuates on a weakened portion of partition 6 and a pusher member 17 one end of which is attached to lever 18 and the other end of which is actuatable to be pushed in the direction of the arrow by the tongue 16 which is also used for opening the top 10 of the can, as clearly illustrated in FIG. 2 of the drawings.

The basic operation of the system of the present invention comprises introducing a beverage for human consumption into compartment 2 of the container 1, storing a refrigerant fluid under high pressure into compartment 3, which is kept hermetically stored in said compartment until the time in which it is desired to cool the beverage is reached, and providing compartment 4 with a suitable vacuum. When it is desired to cool the beverage, the punching device 7 of FIG. 1 or the partition breaking device 7 of FIG. 2 is pushed against partition 6 in order to produce a perforation therein, thus causing the refrigerant fluid under high pressure to violently pass through said perforation from a high pressure system in compartment 3 to a low pressure system in compartment 4. This sudden change in pressure produces the flashing and expansion of the refrigerant fluid, the temperature of which is drastically reduced because of the thermodynamic process involved, whereby the low temperature of the thus produced gas will be transmitted to the beverage contained in compartment 2 of the container 1, thus lowering the temperature of said beverage until the system reaches thermodynamic equilibrium by equalizing the temperatures in the whole system, which condition will take only a few minutes or even seconds of time. Thus, the operation of the system of the present invention will produce a cooled beverage in a matter of a few minutes or even in seconds, depending on the dimensions of the different compartments and on the characteristics of the refrigerant fluid used.

The present invention will be more fully understood in the following examples which are given only for illustrative but non-limitative purposes.

A prototype container according to the invention was built by providing a cylindrical can having a diameter of 6 cm and a height of 13 cm. A compartment for high pressure refrigerant fluid, in the shape of a spherical sector having a height of 2 cm was superposed to the flat bottom of said container, and a cylindrical vertical expansion compartment having a diameter of 1.5 cm and a height of 8 cm was attached over the spherical wall of said compartment for refrigerant fluid. The thus manufactured system therefore provided a first compartment for beverage having a volume of approximately 316 cc, a second compartment for refrigerant fluid under high pressure having a volume of approximately 38 cc and a vacuum or expansion third compartment having a volume of approximately 14 cc.

The first compartment was filled with water at an ambient temperature of approximately 20.degree. C., the second compartment was filled with liquid Freon 22 (chloro-difluoro-methane R-22) under an absolute pressure of about 8.2 kg/cm.sup.2 and a vacuum was produced in the third compartment to provide an absolute pressure of about 0.07 kg/cm.sup.2. The partition between the second and third compartments was punched to permit the expansion of the Freon 22. The temperature of the water contained in the first compartment was measured after a period of time of 2 minutes and it was found to be of approximately 10.4.degree. C.

The experiment described in example 1 was repeated by using the same prototype container but using a different refrigerant fluid which in this case was Freon 21 (dichloro-fluoro-methane R-21) at an absolute pressure of about 1.33 kg/cm.sup.2. After punching the partition the temperature of the water was measured as in example 1, giving a value of approximately 15.6.degree. C.

The experiment described in example 1 was repeated by using the same prototype container but using a different refrigerant fluid which in this case was difluoroethane (R-152a) at an absolute pressure of about 4.6 kg/cm.sup.2. After punching the partition the temperature of the water was measured as in example 1, giving a value of approximately 12.degree. C.

From the above examples it may be seen that apparently the best refrigerant fluid is Freon 22, because besides achieving the best results, namely, the lowest temperature of the beverage, is absolutely non-toxic. On the other hand, as it may be seen from the above, the container of the present invention which has the appearance of a normal can for beverages like those broadly used throughout the world, offer the consumers of all types of canned beverages a practical and functional solution to the inconveniences of not having a cooling or refrigerating system available for cooling the canned beverages, inasmuch as by the very simple solution of operating the punching device of the system of the present invention, they will be able to produce in a very short time a nicely cooled beverage which will be both palatable and refreshing.

Also, it is to be pointed out that the use of cans built in accordance with this invention will considerably reduce the energy consumption of the traditional refrigerating or cooling apparatus where canned beverages are normally stored for consumption, inasmuch as it will not be necessary to store the beverages canned in cans built with the integral cooling system of the invention in such apparatus, because they can be sold directly from the shelf to the consumers.

Although certain specific embodiments of the invention have been shown and described above, it must be understood that many modifications thereof are possible. The present invention, therefore, must not be restricted except insofar as is necessitated by the prior art and by the spirit of the appended claims.