Patent ID: 7780909
Filing Date: 2010-08-24
Classification: A61L

Abstract:
1. A method for sanitizing and disinfecting a space comprising: placing an aqueous sanitizing liquid into an interior space of a tank, the tank having a bottom sector, an exhaust sector having an inner wall, and an air inlet sector having an inner wall facing the exhaust sector inner wall, the air inlet sector inner wall and the exhaust sector inner wall forming a compression region for a air pathway within the interior space, and further having an air inlet in the air inlet sector and an exhaust outlet in the exhaust sector; continuously transferring aqueous liquid having at least one of sanitizing, disinfecting, and sterilizing properties from the tank interior space to a reactor vessel positioned within the tank bottom sector; vibrating an ultrasonically vibratable disc of an ultrasonic head array to generate ultrasonic energy, the ultrasonic head array positioned within and beneath a top edge of the reactor vessel and submerged within the transferred liquid at a substantially constant emersion depth resulting from the continuously transferring liquid step so as to form a plurality of atomized micro-particles therefrom; providing a preselected flow of air within the interior space from the inlet toward the outlet, the air flowing through the compression region from a high pressure to a low pressure, so as to cause smaller particles within the plurality of micro-particles to move more quickly than larger particles thereof, the preselected flow of air allowing at least a portion of the larger micro-particles to fall back to the tank bottom sector and the plurality of micro-particles preferentially enriched with the smaller micro-particles; providing a mesh filter having a first cross sectional portion positioned for initially receiving the preferentially enriched micro-particles and a second cross sectional portion downstream therefrom, wherein the first cross sectional portion is smaller than the second cross sectional portion; passing the preferentially enriched micro-particles through the mesh styled filter prior to exiting the exhaust outlet for a filtering thereof; and exhausting the preferentially enriched micro-particles from the reactor vessel through an exhaust outlet to a space exterior of the tank.