Patent ID: 7767987

Claim:
An irradiation chamber for open-mouthed containers, wherein a front pressure adjusting chamber and a rear pressure adjusting chamber are connected integrally to side faces of an irradiation process chamber for maintaining a negative pressure state with its own pressure reducing means, and a rotating transport device is disposed rotatably in each pressure adjusting chamber, a plurality of holding devices for holding open-mouthed containers are provided at roughly equal intervals on outer surfaces of said rotating transport devices, and wherein said pressure reducing means is provided in such a way that the open-mouthed containers can be transferred one after another from one rotating transport device to the other rotating transport device from said front pressure adjusting chamber to the rear. pressure adjusting chamber, that partition walls are provided at the rotating transport devices in said front and rear pressure adjusting chambers to divide said holding devices to form a plurality of small compartments by using the partition walls and chamber wall surfaces when said rotating transport devices are moving, and that it is arranged that the pressure is reduced in the small compartments in a range from an open-mouthed container entrance side of said front pressure adjusting chamber to the irradiation process chamber side and in the other range from said irradiation process chamber to the open-mouthed container exit side of said rear pressure adjusting chamber, and wherein at least one electron beam irradiation means is arranged in said irradiation process chamber.