A CONTINUOUS TRAIN OF PACKAGES OF DEOXIDIZING AGENT AND APPARATUS FOR SEVERING PACKAGES FROM THAT TRAIN

Abstract: A belt-like package train (10) having at least a surface layer made of a plastic comprises a plurality of packages (20) connected in series in one direction by sealed webs (24). Each package (20) is charged with a deoxidizing agent such as a metal powder, e.g., iron powder. The package train is coiled on a core (28) made of a thick paper material having a low air-permeability. The coiled package train is disposed on the inlet side of an automatic severing apparatus (12) and is successively fed into the apparatus so that the packages are successively severed from the train beginning with the outermost layer of the coiled package train.

Description: The present invention relates to a continuous package train having a plurality of packages connected in series at least in one direction in a belt-like form, each package containing a deoxidizing agent. The invention also is concerned with an apparatus for severing the packages of deoxidizing agent from such a train of packages. In order to prevent goods such as foodstuffs and medical drugs from deteriorating during long storage, it has been proposed to put a package of an agent capable of absorbing oxygen (referred to as deoxidizing agent, hereinunder) in a hermetic foodstuffs or drug container such as a sack or a can having walls of a high gas barrier effect. This measure has become an established technique particularly in the field of preservation of foodstuffs, and is finding spreading use in various fields which require the elimination of all kinds of unfavourable effects which may be caused by the presence of oxygen. Systems are also proposed for automatically producing goods such as foodstuffs and medical drugs sealed in hermetic containers together with packages of a deoxidizing agent. For achieving a high production efficiency, such production systems usually employ a package train of the deoxidizing agent in which a plurality of packages each containing the deoxidizing agent are connected in series by sealed connecting webs in a form like a belt. The packages are severed one by one from the package train by an automatic severing apparatus and independent packages thus obtained are charged into successive containers of the goods. The package train is folded at connecting webs. A known automatic severing apparatus, has thickness sensors which measure the thickness of the package train so as to distinguish the thin sealed connecting webs from the packages which are charged with the deoxidizing agent and, hence, are large in thickness. However the folded webs may not be properly straightened before they reach the sensor, and this can lead to mistiming of the operation of the cutter. This problem is particularly serious when the package has a layer of plastic film coating on the surface thereof. The same problem is encountered also when the detection of the sealed connecting web is effected by means of a photoelectric tube which can detect a specific mark on the package train. The use of a layer of plastic film coating on the package is disadvantageous also in that the package train cannot easily be folded at the sealed connecting webs due to the high resiliency of the plastic film, which makes it difficult to store a long package train in folded state. Usually, a package of deoxidizing agent has a tendency to absorb oxygen when left in the air, so that it is preferably kept away from the air unless it is not going to be charged in a container of goods such as foodstuffs. The known package train, when stored in a folded state, tends to allow the ambient air to flow into the spaces between adjacent packages stacked in layers, so that the packages undesirably absorb oxygen, with the result that the oxygen absorbability is impaired before the packages are severed by the severing apparatus. The stored packages which have absorbed oxygen generate heat which is accumulated due to high density of stack of successive packages and in turn vaporizes the moisture inherently contained in the deoxidation agent so as to accelerate the impairment of its oxygen absorbability. For these reasons, the length of the package train which has to be fed to a severing apparatus is undesirably limited. An object of the present invention is to provide a package train and a package severing apparatus which can overcome the above-described problems of the prior art. More specifically, the present invention is aimed at providing a package train of a deoxidation agent and a package severing apparatus, capable of ensuring a high degree of precision of thickness measurement and minimizing any reduction in the oxygen absorbability of the packages in the stored state, thereby enabling the package train to have an increased length. The invention provides a continuous package train having a plurality of packages connected in series and charged with a deoxidizing agent, characterised in that the packages are connected in series in at least one direction so as to form a belt-like package train, and the package train is coiled on a core in layers in such a manner that packages in one layer overlap packages in an adjacent layer and substantially prevent air from entering the spaces between adjacent layers of said packages, said core having a pair of opposed flanges covering the lateral sides of the coiled packages. The invention also provides an apparatus for severing successive packages containing a deoxidizing agent from such a continuous package train, comprising cutting means for cutting the package train at connecting webs which connect adjacent packages, characterised by supporting means at the inlet side of the cutting means for rotatably supporting a core on which the package train is coiled. Because the package train is rolled on a core, no fold is formed in the packages nor in the sealed connecting webs, so that a high degree of precision is obtained in the measurement of the thickness or photoelectric detection of marks. This in turn enables the package severing apparatus to cut the package train precisely at the connecting webs, thereby obviating the problems of the prior art. In addition, since the package train is coiled in layers, only the outermost layer is exposed to the ambient air and the air cannot enter the space between adjacent layers, so that deterioration in the oxygen absorbability is advantageously avoided. The reduction in the oxygen absorbability is small even in the packages constituting the outermost layer of the coil, because only one side of the outermost layer is exposed to the ambient air. An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:- Figure 1 is a front elevational view of a package severing apparatus embodying the present invention for severing successive packages of deoxidizing agent from a continuous package train; Figure 2 is a front elevational view of a conventional package severing apparatus; Figure 3 is a perspective view of a continuous package train; Figure 4 is a perspective view of a package train coiled on a core; and Figure 5 is a perspective view of a wrapped package train. Figure 3 shows schematically a package train 10 consisting of a plurality of package units 20 which are connected in series so as to form a train. More specifically, each package unit 20 has a sack portion 22 charged with a deoxidizing agent and a sealed connecting web 24. The sack portions 22 and the sealed connecting webs 24 are arranged alternatingly in the longitudinal direction of the package train 10. Each sack portion 22 in this embodiment is sealed at its three sides after being charged with the deoxidizing agent. The remaining side is constituted by a folded edge of the package material. Examples of the deoxidizing agent with which the package 22 is charged are sulfite, hydrogensulfite, dithionite, ferrous salt, hydroquinone, catechol. resorcin, pyrogallol, gallic acid, rongalit, ascorbic acid and/or its salt, isoascorbic acid and/or its salt, sorbose, glucose, lignin, dibuthylhydroxytoluene and buthylhydroxyanisole. It is also possible to use a deoxidizing agent containing metallic powder such as iron powder or a deoxidizing agent of oxygen-gas generating type or carbon dioxide absorption type. Among these deoxidizing agents, ascorbic acid and/or its salt and deoxidizing agent containing metal powder such as iron powder are used most suitably. Various types of packaging material are selectively used in accordance with the uses of the packages. For instance, a laminated sheet having a paper layer and a porous polyethylene film or a laminated sheet having a perforated plastic film, paper layer and a porous polyethylene film are suitable for use as the packaging material. The package train in accordance with the present invention is stored in coiled state on a core such as a bobbin. This requires that the packaging material has a high level of resistance to tension so that it may not be broken or torn when coiled. In addition, it is preferred that the packaging material is of the type which enables it to be printed on the reverse side thereof and that packaging material exhibits superior properties from the view point of safety and sanitation. To cope with such requirements, the packaging material preferably has a plastic film such as of polyethyleneterephthalate, polyamide, polypropylene, cellophane and so forth. The package train 10 thus formed is coiled on the core 28 of a bobbin 26 as shown in Figure 4, and the coiled package train 10 is sealed in a sack 30 made of a film having a high level of gas barrier effect, before it is commercially distributed. When the packages of the package train are put into containers of goods to be deoxidized, e.g., foodstuffs, the package train 10 coiled on the bobbin 26 is taken out of the sack 30 and the bobbin is mounted rotatably on a bracket 32 provided on the inlet side of an automatic severing apparatus 12 as shown in Figure 1, so that the leading end of the package train 10 is fed into the automatic severing apparatus 12. Since the package train 10 according to the invention is stored in the form of a coil on the bobbin 26, there are no fold lines formed in the package train 10, so that the thickness sensors 14 which measure the thickness of the package train can correctly detect the position of the sealed connecting webs 24. The apparatus 12 also has a cutter 16 which is operated in synchronism with the passage of the package train in accordance with the output from the thickness sensors 14 so as to cut the package train at successive sealed connecting webs, whereby the packages are severed one by one. The deterioration of the detecting precision is avoided also in the case where a photoelectric mark sensor is used in place of the thickness sensors 14. The package train 10 is subjected to the ambient air after mounting on the automatic severing apparatus 12. However, since the package train 10 is coiled in layers, only the outermost layer is contacted by air, so that no substantial reduction in the oxygen absorption capacity takes place in other layers. The reduction in the oxygen absorption capacity is small also in the outermost layer of the coil, because this layer is contacted by the ambient air only at its one side. Thus, the coiling of the package train 10 on the bobbin 26 is preferably conducted in such a manner as to expel air from the spaces between adjacent layers and to prevent air from entering such spaces, while avoiding any unfavourable physical effect on the package train 10. The conventional package train 10 shown in Figure 2 cannot effectively prevent air from coming into the spaces between adjacent layers of the stack. In the conventional apparatus a package train 10 also has a plurality of packages containing a deoxidizing agent which are connected in series by sealed connecting webs. The package train is folded at its connecting webs such that the successive packages are stacked on one another, and is stored in a case 18 with its trailing end placed on the bottom of the container so that the package train can be continuously fed into the severing apparatus 12. As already stated this known system suffers from a disadvantage in that the fold of the sealed connecting web may not be perfectly straightened before it reaches the thickness sensors 14 of the automatic severing apparatus, with the result that the thickness sensor fails to detect the sealed connecting web so as to mistime actuation of the cutter 16. In the package train of the present invention, the core 28 of the bobbin 26 is preferably made of a material which has only a small permeability to air, because a material having large air permeability will undesirably cause the packages on the core 28 to absorb oxygen through the material of the core 28. Examples of materials suitable for use as the material of the core 28 are a thick paper sheet or a plastic such as polyethylene, polypropylene or the like. More specifically, a material having oxygen permeability of the order of 100,000 cc/m² 24 Hr.atm (under the atmospheric pressure for the duration of 24 hours) or less is preferably used as the material of the core 28. If the circumferential length of the coiled package train 10 is too small, each package 20 tends to buckle even after the package train is uncoiled. Such a tendency to buckle is liable to cause troubles such as cutting failure. Therefore, the core 28 of the bobbin 26 should have a circumferential length which is preferably at least twice, preferably three times, that of the length of each package 20 as measured in the coiling direction. The severing apparatus 12 may have substantially the same construction as that of the known apparatus shown in Figure 2. That is the severing apparatus can have thickness sensors 14, a cutter 16 which operates in accordance with the result of thickness measurement conducted by the thickness sensors 14, guide rollers 34, 36, 38, a vibrator 40 and feed rollers 42, 44. The continuous package train 10 is coiled on a bobbin, so that substantial reduction in the oxygen absorption capacity, which may otherwise be caused due to contact with the ambient air, is avoided. This is regardless of whether the deoxidizing agent is of the additive reaction type which exhibits oxygen absorbability with an external supply of moisture or of self-reaction type which absorbs oxygen when merely placed in the air. The coiled package train also enables the cutter 16 of the automatic severing apparatus to cut the package train 10 precisely at the connecting webs 24. Some of the known deoxidizing agents used hitherto show a large reduction rate of oxygen absorption capacity, which may be 5% or higher, when left in the air at 25°C and 50-60% humidity. A package of such deoxidizing agents having a large reduction rate of oxygen absorption capacity can contain only a small number of packages, so that it is not possible to use an automatic severing apparatus. In contrast, the package train in accordance with the present invention can have a large number of packages, so that it can be conveniently and efficiently handled by an automatic severing apparatus. The possibility of producing package trains having a large number of packages is advantageous from all points of view. One example of a package train in accordance with the present invention will now be described. A package train was prepared by using, as the packaging material, a porous polyethyleneterephthalate film of 12 µm thickness and 100mm wide, such as to have a series of packages each 50mm long and 50mm wide and charged with 3.0g of a deoxidizing agent containing iron powder. The package train thus formed was coiled in good order on a collared bobbin having a core made of a thick paper sheet and having an inside diameter of 76mm and a thickness of 7mm. The package train had 2,000 deoxidizing agent packages connected in series. Immediately after coiling, the package train was placed in a sack made of drawn nylon/polyethylene coated with vinylidene chloride. The sack was deaerated and then sealed. As an example for comparison, a similar deoxidizing agent package train of known folded type was prepared. This package train of the comparison example has 2,000 packages which were folded at every 8 packages, and was sealed in a sack of the same material as that used for the package train of the invention. These two types of package train were taken out of the sacks and were subjected to a test severing operation which was conducted with an automatic severing apparatus (Model NR4 produced by Asahi Kinzoku K.K.). The test operation was conducted at a severing rate of 20 packages per minute. The oxygen absorption capacity was measured on the first package, the 1,000th package and the 2,000th package for each type of package train. The measurement of the oxygen absorption capacity was conducted by sealing the sample packages in sacks of the same material as above together with 3 litres of air, preserving the sample packages in the sealed state at 25°C for seven days, and then measuring the oxygen concentration as the oxygen absorption. The results of the test are shown in Tables 1 and 2. As will be seen from Table 2, no severing failure was observed when the package train of the invention was handled by the automatic severing apparatus, whereas inferior severing was experienced with the package train of the comparison example, due to the presence of folds in the package train. In fact, severing failure was observed three times during the severing operation. The package train in accordance with the present invention showed no substantial reduction in the oxygen absorption capacity, but a significant reduction was observed with the package train of the comparison example, and the 2,000th package of the comparison example was materially unusable. As has been described, according to the invention, it is possible to obtain a package train having a large number of packages containing a deoxidizing agent, without any risk of reduction in the oxygen absorption capacity which inevitably takes place in the conventional package train before fed to an automatic severing apparatus. In addition, the package train of the present invention enables the automatic severing apparatus to cut the package train precisely at the connecting webs at which adjacent packages are connected, so that products such as foodstuffs sealed together with a deoxidizing agent package can be produced at a high yield.

Claims: A continuous package train having a plurality of packages (20) connected in series and charged with a deoxidizing agent, characterised in that the packages (20) are connected in series in at least one direction so as to form a belt-like package train (10), and the package train (10) is coiled on a core (28) in layers in such a manner that packages in one layer overlap packages in an adjacent layer and substantially prevent air from entering the spaces between adjacent layers of said packages (20), said core (28) having a pair of opposed flanges (26) covering the lateral sides of the coiled packages. A package train as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the package train (10) has thick-walled sack portions (22) constituting the packages (20) charged with deoxidizing agent and sealed connecting webs (24) having a thickness smaller than that of said sack portions (22), the sack portions (22) and the sealed connecting webs (24) being arranged alternately in the longitudinal direction of the package train. A package train as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the package train (10) is made from a material which has at least a surface layer made of a plastic film. A package train as claimed in any one of Claims 1 to 3, wherein each of the packages (20) absorbs oxygen from the ambient air through a wall of its sack portion (22), when left in the ambient air. A package train as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the core (28) has a low level of air-permeability. A package train as claimed in Claim 5, wherein the core (28) has an oxygen-permeability of 100,000 cc/m² 24Hr.atm or less. A package train as claimed in any one of the preceding Claims, wherein the core (28) has a circumferential length which is at least twice the length of each package (20) as measured in the coiling direction. A package train as claimed in any one of Claims 3 to 7, wherein the plastic film comprises polyethyleneterephthalate, polyamide, polypropylene, or cellophane and said deoxidizing agent exhibits reduction rates of oxygen absorption capacity of at least 5° when exposed to an atmosphere of 50 to 60% relative humidity at 25 degrees C and is at least one member selected from the group consisting of ascorbic acid, a salt of ascorbic acid, and a metal powder. A package train as claimed in any one of Claims 1 to 7, wherein the deoxidizing agent contains a metal powder. A package train as claimed in Claim 8 or Claim 9, wherein the metal powder is iron powder. An apparatus for severing successive packages containing a deoxidizing agent from a continuous package train as claimed in any one of the preceding Claims, comprising a cutter means (16) for cutting the package train (10) at connecting webs (24) which connect adjacent packages, characterised by supporting means (32) at the inlet side of the cutting means (16) for rotatably supporting the core (28) on which the package train (10) is coiled.

Inventors: MORIYA, TAKEHIKO, TAKAHASHI, HIDEYUKI
Applicants: MITSUBISHI GAS CHEMICAL COMPANY, INC.
Application year: 1986
Main classification: B65D75
IPC codes: B26D7, B26D5, B65D75, B65D81, B65D85