Patent ID: 7703262

Claim:
A method of operating a bottling plant, said method comprising the steps of: moving bottles to be filled into a rotary bottle sterilizing arrangement and sterilizing at least two of the bottles simultaneously in said rotary bottle sterilizing arrangement; said step of sterilizing each of the bottles comprising: providing ultraviolet light and emitting said ultraviolet light from an emitting device; positioning said emitting device inside the bottle; emitting said ultraviolet light from said emitting device in a spherical pattern and sterilizing the inside surface of the bottle, wherein the intensity of the ultraviolet radiation that is emitted in a spherical pattern is not distributed uniformly over the surface of an imaginary sphere, and irradiating predetermined areas of the bottles more intensively than other areas of the bottles; and positioning said emitting device outside the bottle upon completion of treatment of the inside surface of the bottle with ultraviolet light; moving the sterilized bottles out of said bottle sterilizing arrangement and into a rotary bottle filling arrangement; filling the sterilized bottles with a liquid product; moving the filled bottles out of said bottle filling arrangement and into a bottle closing arrangement; closing the tops of filled bottles; and moving the closed bottles out of said bottle closing arrangement.