JP4937720B2 - Powder filling method and filling device used therefor - Google Patents

Description

  In particular, the present invention relates to a method for filling powder in a predetermined container containing toner, powder developer, and the like for copying machines, printers and facsimiles, and a filling apparatus used therefor. .

In recent years, with the miniaturization of copiers / faxes / printers, supply products have been miniaturized.
Particularly for toner supply products, since the container is downsized, it is required to increase the amount of toner in the container, and the filling rate tends to increase. That is, high-density packing has become a future issue.

In response to the conventional background as described above, proposals have been made for a powder filling apparatus having a predetermined deaeration function (for example, see Patent Documents 1 and 2 below).
These are particularly effective in the case of applying a pneumatic filling method of powder, in which filling is performed in a state where the tip of a nozzle for discharging powder fluidized by gas into the container is surrounded by the powder. .

However, it has been difficult to perform efficient deaeration in a container for powder filling.
This is because the concentration of the powder in the gas-powder mixture differs between a location in the container, for example, near the filling port, and near the opposite position away from this.
In particular, it often varies greatly depending on the depth level, and degassing in parts where the powder concentration is low, that is, the part where the gas ratio is high, prevents clogging of the filter and excessive mechanical stress on the powder. This is advantageous from the viewpoint of avoiding the application of the load.

  In addition, it is necessary to change the suction position of the deaeration tube in the container in order to continue the deaeration efficiently. However, if the deaeration is performed while changing the position of the deaeration tube, this position is changed. Degassing must be stopped at the time of change, and if the deaeration tube position is near the filling port at the initial stage of degassing, toner is blocked at the container filling port, and toner cannot be supplied to the container. This problem occurs. On the other hand, if the deaeration tube is fixed to the bottom part and deaerated, the toner coagulates at the bottom part and the upper part of the container is filled with toner containing a large amount of air, and it takes a long time to complete the filling of the container. .

Moreover, the quality of the powder (toner) may be deteriorated due to local excessive deaeration.
Furthermore, in order to prevent the container from being lifted, backwash air for releasing clogging must be put in the deaeration pipe to change the position of the deaeration pipe, and the tact per bottle falls and the productivity is limited. there were.

Here, a conventionally known powder filling method will be described with reference to the drawings.
1A to 1C show a process of filling the container 1 with powder.
The auxiliary nozzle 3 is inserted into the container 1 in advance up to the vicinity of the bottom of the powder container.
Subsequently, the powder 2 is dropped from above, and the powder surface is applied to the net 4, and at the same time, the pressure of the suction source 5 is controlled to deaerate the powder.
As shown in FIG.1 (b), since the powder 2 becomes a powder lump 2a by deaeration and solidifies, the nozzle tip may not come off from the powder lump 2a. Even if the powder level rises, new powder cannot be degassed, and further, the powder 2 overflows from the upper filling port of the powder container 1.
In order to prevent the above inconvenience, the suction source 5 and the air cleaning pressure source 6 are switched by the switching unit 7 in accordance with the rise of the powder surface, and the mesh 4 part of the auxiliary nozzle 3 is blown by air, and the powder mass 2a A part of the periphery of the mesh 4 is destroyed, and the cleaning of the mesh 4 of the auxiliary nozzle 3 is performed simultaneously.
As a result, a gap is provided between the auxiliary nozzle 3 and the powder lump 2a, and the upper portion is still in a low density state, so that the auxiliary nozzle 3 can be moved upward ( FIG. 1 (c)). In addition, this can prevent a decrease in performance and a decrease in productivity due to the fixing of the mesh 4 part of the auxiliary nozzle 3 with time, and can extend the maintenance cycle. Thereafter, the auxiliary nozzle 3 is raised and the same operation as described above is performed, and this is repeated until a predetermined filling amount is obtained up to the upper side of the powder container 1.

  However, as described above, the above-described method has not only many problems to be improved in powder filling efficiency, but is effective in a small-diameter filling container. However, it cannot be used effectively in terms of area ratio, and there is a problem that it takes too much time for deaeration even in the height direction.

The powder filling device of Patent Document 2 below includes a powder discharging device and powder filling means, and a powdery and gas fluid mixture is introduced into the powder container to fill the powder container with the powder. A filter device that can be inserted into a powder container, and a deaeration region part adjusting unit, wherein the filter unit includes a deaeration region unit that removes only gas from the fluid mixture. It has a sufficiently wide filter surface that can be divided into non-deaeration region parts, and the deaeration region part adjustment means is mounted on the filter means movably on the filter surface of the filter means, By moving the filter surface, the ratio of the deaeration region part and the non-deaeration region part of the filter surface is updated.
However, this filter means has a problem that the production capacity is inferior because there is only one deaeration region and one system for driving the negative pressure source.

Further, in Patent Document 3 below, when a powder mixed with fluid and fluidized is filled in a powder container, the gas contained in the powder is quickly degassed so that the inside of the powder container Proposals have been made on a filling device for the purpose of improving work efficiency of filling work.
The powder filling apparatus is connected to a powder pipe that transports powder fluidized by mixing gas, a suction pipe that surrounds at least a part of an outer periphery of the powder pipe, and the suction pipe. A negative pressure source and a portion of the powder pipe surrounded by the suction pipe, and the gas contained in the powder conveyed through the powder pipe is sucked by driving the negative pressure source. And a deaeration unit that allows suction into the pipe.
However, such a pipe means has a problem that the production capacity is inferior because there is one deaeration region and one negative pressure source driving device.

JP 2005-029198 A JP 2005-067072 JP 2005-067652 A

  Therefore, in the present invention, in view of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, a method for filling powder into a container and a device used therefor are studied, and a filling method with high accuracy and excellent filling efficiency. And a filling device.

The invention according to claim 1 is a method of inserting a plurality of auxiliary nozzles into powder in a container and filling the powder into the container while degassing the powder, wherein the plurality of auxiliary nozzles respectively, to contact with the powder, and other auxiliary nozzle comprising a different net portion position in the length direction of the auxiliary nozzle, and an auxiliary nozzle portion constituting the tube, and a suction unit, communicates with the air cleaning unit, the network unit to control the pressure by the suction unit, and deaerated of the powder through the auxiliary nozzle portion communicating therewith, filling powder into said container And a method of filling powder, characterized in that a powder lump that has been degassed by the air cleaning unit is broken and the powder remaining in the auxiliary nozzle is removed. I will provide a.

In the invention of claim 2, by the suction unit, the pressure in the auxiliary nozzles, the method of filling the powder according to claim 1, characterized in that a subatmospheric

In the invention of claim 3 , after the deaeration of the powder, when the auxiliary nozzle is extracted from the powder, the pressure in the auxiliary nozzle is controlled to be equal to or higher than the atmospheric pressure by the air cleaning unit , The powder filling method according to claim 1 or 2 , wherein the lump of the degassed powder is broken and the powder remaining in the auxiliary nozzle is removed.

In the invention of claim 4, among the plurality of network portions of the auxiliary nozzle, Insert desired number of stages in the powder, the source of suction gas in the powder and unified in one place, the plurality of The powder filling method according to any one of claims 1 to 3 , wherein the powder is degassed by a net portion.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a powder filling apparatus applied to the filling method according to any one of the first to fourth aspects.

  According to the present invention, it was possible to improve the accuracy of the powder in the container and to improve the filling efficiency.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail, but the present invention is not limited to the following examples.

  The method of the present invention is a method in which an auxiliary nozzle is inserted into the powder in the container, and the container is filled with the powder while degassing the powder, and the auxiliary nozzle is in contact with the powder. Part, an auxiliary nozzle part constituting a pipe, and a suction part. The pressure is controlled by the suction part to degas the powder through the mesh part and the auxiliary nozzle part communicating with the mesh part. And filling the container with powder.

First, a nozzle device having an auxiliary nozzle for degassing applied in the method of the present invention will be described.
FIG. 2 shows a schematic cross-sectional view of an example of a nozzle device used for powder filling.
The nozzle device 100 includes a net unit 101, an auxiliary nozzle unit 102, and a suction unit 103.
This nozzle device 100 has two suction portions 103 and 103a, and the auxiliary nozzles 3 and 3a communicate with each other.

A plurality of nets constituting the net unit 101 may be provided in the length direction of the nozzle.
In the example of FIG. 2, it is comprised by the center vicinity (4a) and the front-end | tip vicinity (4).
The outer diameter (12a, 12) of each of the nets 4a and 4 is φ3 to φ50 mm, preferably 4 to 30 mm, and more preferably φ5 to 20 mm.
Each length (13a, 13) of the nets 4a and 4 is 10 to 1000 mm, preferably 20 to 600 mm, and more preferably 30 to 300 mm.

  The suction pressure (arrows 9 and 9a in the figure) in the suction sources 5 and 5a for the gas in the powder of the auxiliary nozzle constituting the suction unit 103 is −5 to −100 kPa, preferably −10 to 10 It is -95kPa, More preferably, it is -15-90kPa.

  The flow rate when the gas in the powder of the auxiliary nozzle is sucked by the suction sources 5 and 5a (in combination with arrows 9 and 9a in the figure) is 5 to 1000 LPM, preferably 10 to 500 LPM, more preferably 15 ~ 200LPM.

The outer diameter and length of the mesh constituting the auxiliary nozzle are as described above, but the outer diameter of the mesh 4, 4a portion of the auxiliary nozzle is as much as possible due to the difference in the particle size, bulk density, and physical properties of the powder to be handled. It is desirable to make the net part longer and longer.
When the outer diameter of the auxiliary nozzle mesh 4, 4a is small and the length is short, effective deaeration is performed unless the suction position of the auxiliary nozzle in the predetermined powder filling container is changed. This causes a problem that the powder overflows from the powder-filled container.

FIG. 3 shows a schematic configuration diagram in a state where the nozzle device 100 shown in FIG. 2 is installed in a predetermined powder filling container 1.
In the prior art, as shown in FIG. 1, since the net of the auxiliary nozzle is one place, after sucking the gas in the powder once, the auxiliary nozzle is pulled up and the position is moved to a place where the density is low. As a result, it was necessary to suck the gas in the powder twice or more, and there was a problem that the deaeration speed was extremely slow.
As shown in FIG. 2, by providing the nets 4 and 4a for the auxiliary nozzles 3 and 3a,
It was confirmed that the deaeration rate in the powder in the powder filling container 1 shown in FIG.

Further, when applying a powder filling container 1 having a large diameter, it is confirmed that the deaeration speed can be improved by using a plurality of auxiliary nozzles 3 and 3a as shown in FIG. It was.
FIG. 5 shows a schematic top view when four auxiliary nozzles (3, 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d in the figure) are applied.

As shown in FIG. 2, air cleaning sources 6 and 6a are provided in parallel with the suction sources 5 and 5a constituting the suction units 103 and 103a, and these are respectively switched by the switching units 7 and 7a. , The operation can be switched.
The air cleaning sources 6 and 6a have a function of preventing powder from adhering to the nets 4 and 4a of the auxiliary nozzles 3 and 3a connected to the air cleaning sources 6 and 6a, respectively.
The pressure when blown by the air cleaning sources 7 and 7a (arrows 10 and 10a in FIG. 2) is 0.01 to 0.5 MPa, preferably 0.1 to 0.4 MPa, more preferably Is 0.1 to 0.3 MPa.

  In order to efficiently switch between suction and air cleaning by the operation of the switching unit 7 and to prevent powder adhesion by accurate deaeration air delivery, as shown in FIG. 6, suction of gas in the powder It is preferable to provide pressure / flow rate control devices 14, 14 a, 15, 15 a that can individually control the sources 5, 5 a and the air cleaning sources 7, 7 a and are equipped with respective pressure / flow rate measurement control functions. By appropriately operating this, filling and degassing, and prevention of powder adhesion to the auxiliary nozzle can be achieved.

  After deaeration of the powder in the container, when the auxiliary nozzle is extracted from the powder, the air cleaning sources 6 and 6a and the suction sources 5 and 5a are switched so that the pressure in the auxiliary nozzle is changed. It is preferable to control the pressure to be higher than the atmospheric pressure to destroy the lump of the degassed powder and to remove the powder remaining in the auxiliary nozzle.

  The nozzle device 100 shown in FIGS. 2 to 6 has a function of degassing a gas in a powder in a predetermined powder container, and includes a conventionally known auger type filling device and fluid type filling. The present invention can also be applied to other filling devices such as a device.

  The powder to be deaerated by the nozzle device 100 preferably has a particle size of about 0.1 to 50 μm.

The powder-filled container to be degassed has a body diameter of 30 to 500 mm, preferably 50 to 350 mm, and more preferably 60 to 200 mm.
About a height, the higher one is preferable and shall be 50-2000 mm, Preferably, it is 100-1500 mm, More preferably, it shall be 200-1000 mm.
The larger the diameter, the more preferably φ15 to 300 mm, preferably φ20 to 200 mm, and more preferably φ25 to 150 mm.

  Regarding the height of the filling container and the length of the auxiliary nozzle, the height of the powder filling container 1 is 50 to 2000 mm, preferably 100 to 1500 mm, and more preferably 200 to 1000. The length of the auxiliary nozzle is preferably 1/2 to 1/6. Thereby, it was confirmed that the deaeration of the filling powder was efficiently performed and the powder density was increased at high speed.

  Next to the mesh 4 of the auxiliary nozzle, this length is 10 to 1000 mm, preferably 20 to 800 mm, and more preferably 30 to 500 mm. Assuming that the length of the auxiliary nozzle net 4 is 500 mm when the length is 2000 mm, as shown in FIG. 7, by arranging four auxiliary nozzles at intervals of 500 mm from the bottom, The powder can be deaerated extremely efficiently, and the density of the powder can be increased at high speed.

  Hereinafter, although the specific Example of this invention is given and demonstrated, this invention is not limited to the example shown below.

[Conditions for filling powder into filling container]
Powder: Digital toner: Ricoh type TYPE16, specific gravity 1.0, particle size 1-15 μm
Filling container: inner diameter φ100 mm, length 500 mm, volume 2900 g, filling amount of powder into cylindrical polyethylene bottle filling container: specified value 1200 g
Filling device: Fluid-type filling device Deaeration device: Fixed condition Auxiliary nozzle network: Diameter φ10mm, Length 100mm (for the number of stages)
Filling difference: (Actual filling amount-Target filling amount)

  Filling was performed 100 times with respect to the specified value, and the variation in the filling amount of the powder contained in the filling container and the filling speed were measured.

(Filling condition 1)
An experiment was conducted in which the number of stages of the net of the auxiliary nozzle was changed in the vertical direction.
By increasing the number of stages of the auxiliary nozzles, it is possible to omit the time for moving the auxiliary nozzles up and down for deaeration.
Specifically, a bottle with a volume of about 2900 cc (2900 g when water was added) was filled with powder and deaerated with the target of 1200 g, and the filling difference and the filling speed were measured.
The filling difference was assumed to be (actual filling amount−target filling amount), and the filling speed was calculated considering the time for multistage deaeration of the auxiliary nozzle, and the time for filling one filling container was calculated.
Note that the bulk density of the toner was 0.40 g / cc, and variation in filling amount σ: standard deviation (g). Further, when expressed by ± 3σ, the probability is 99.6%.
The filling speed was calculated at an operation rate of 90%.
The measurement results are shown in Table 1 below.
The number of auxiliary nozzles, auxiliary nozzle suction pressure, and auxiliary nozzle cleaning pressure were fixed.

From the results shown in Table 1 above, Examples 1 and 2 in which the number of stages of the net of the auxiliary nozzle was 2 to 4 times that of the Comparative Example were high in powder filling speed and excellent in filling accuracy. .
In particular, in Example 2 in which the number of stages of the net of the auxiliary nozzle was 4, a filling speed as high as 200/50 = 4.0 times as compared with the conventional one could be realized.

(Filling condition 2)
The powder was filled by adjusting the suction pressure of the auxiliary nozzle to increase or decrease.
Except for changing the degassing speed for determining the powder filling speed and the suction pressure of the auxiliary nozzle, filling and degassing are performed in the same manner as in Comparative Example 1 above (filling condition 1). Evaluation was performed.

From Table 2 above, in Example 3 where the suction pressure of the auxiliary nozzle was high, the effect of improving the filling speed was obtained.
When Example 3 and Example 4 were compared, it was confirmed that the filling speed was improved by 60/38 = 1.57 times when the suction pressure was doubled.
However, as shown in Comparative Example 3, when the suction pressure is increased too much, the toner is stressed, so that the quality finally obtained is deteriorated.

(Filling condition 3)
In this example, the number of auxiliary nozzles was adjusted.
In addition, except performing the deaeration speed which determines a filling speed by changing the number of auxiliary nozzles, it filled and deaerated similarly to the comparative example 1 of the said (filling conditions 1), and the filling precision was evaluated. .

As shown in Table 3, in Examples 5 and 6 in which the number of auxiliary nozzles was increased, the powder filling speed was improved.
When the filling speed of the example in which the number of nozzles was increased by 4 times was compared, an improvement effect of Example 6 / Comparative Example 4 = 100/50 = 2.0 times was confirmed.

(Filling condition 4)
The number of auxiliary nozzles and the number of stages of the auxiliary nozzles were adjusted in the vertical direction.
The filling / degassing is the same as in Comparative Example 1 above (filling condition 1) except that the degassing speed for determining the filling speed is changed by changing the number of auxiliary nozzles and changing the number of mesh stages in the vertical direction. The filling accuracy was evaluated.

  As shown in Table 4 above, in Examples 7 and 8 in which the number of meshes of the auxiliary nozzles was increased two to four times, a significant improvement in the filling rate was recognized as compared with Comparative Example 5. That is, in Example 8, in which both the number of auxiliary nozzles and the number of auxiliary nozzle networks were four times, the filling speed was 260/50 = 5.2 times that of Comparative Example 5.

(A)-(c) The deaeration and filling process of the powder by the conventional method are shown. The schematic block diagram of an example of the nozzle apparatus which comprises the filling apparatus applied to this invention method is shown. The schematic block diagram of an example of the powder filling apparatus which combined the nozzle apparatus and the powder filling container is shown. The schematic block diagram of an example of the powder filling apparatus to which the large-diameter powder filling container is applied is shown. The schematic top view of an example of the powder filling apparatus at the time of applying an auxiliary nozzle apparatus to four places is shown. The schematic block diagram of an example of the powder filling apparatus of the structure which provided the auxiliary | assistant nozzle apparatus and the several suction source of gas is shown. The schematic block diagram of an example of the powder filling apparatus which has arrange | positioned the auxiliary | assistant nozzle of 4 steps | paragraphs is shown.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Container 2 Powder 2a Powder lump 3,3a, 3b, 3c, 3d Auxiliary nozzle 4,4a Net 5,5a Suction source 6,6a Air washing pressure source 7,7a Switching part 100 Nozzle device 101 Net part 102 Auxiliary nozzle Part 103 Suction part

Claims (5)

A method of inserting a plurality of auxiliary nozzles into powder in a container and filling the container with powder while degassing the powder,
Each of the plurality of auxiliary nozzles is
And contact with the powder, and other auxiliary nozzle, the length direction of the position of the auxiliary nozzle is different mesh part,
An auxiliary nozzle part constituting the pipe ,
Communicated with the suction part and the air cleaning part,
And that said network section by controlling the pressure by the suction portion, and deaerated of the powder through the auxiliary nozzle portion communicating therewith, filling powder into said container,
A powder filling method comprising: switching between breaking the lump of powder that has been degassed by the air cleaning unit and removing the powder remaining in the auxiliary nozzle . 2. The powder filling method according to claim 1, wherein the pressure in the auxiliary nozzle is reduced to atmospheric pressure or less by the suction part. After the deaeration of the powder, when the auxiliary nozzle is extracted from the powder, the pressure in the auxiliary nozzle is controlled to be equal to or higher than the atmospheric pressure by the air cleaning unit , and the lump of the degassed powder The powder filling method according to claim 1 or 2 , wherein the powder remaining in the auxiliary nozzle is removed. Said auxiliary among the plurality of network portions of the nozzle, Insert desired number of stages in the powder, the source of suction gas in the powder and unified in one place, removal of the powder by the plurality of network portions The powder filling method according to any one of claims 1 to 3 , wherein the method is performed. The powder filling apparatus applied to the filling method as described in any one of Claims 1 thru | or 4 .

Images