JP7526566B2 - Beverage containers and carbonated drink handling equipment - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to beverage containers and carbonated beverage handling equipment.

If the carbonation escapes too quickly from a carbonated drink poured into a beverage container, the drink loses its refreshing taste. Patent Document 1 describes a cup with a rough surface formed on the inside bottom surface. When a carbonated drink is poured into the cup, the impact causes the drink to foam, and the rough surface becomes the starting point for the generation of bubbles, which continue to foam gently over a long period of time.

Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-168430

The invention described in Patent Document 1 provides a spot-like rough surface on the inside bottom surface to promote foaming of the beverage, thereby intentionally foaming the beverage from only a portion of the inside side surface.

However, foaming of beverages usually occurs over the entire inner side surface of the beverage container, and the foam generated in this manner is coarse and breaks down quickly. The inventors have discovered that the cause of foaming that occurs over the entire inner side surface of a beverage container is tiny protrusions of about a few micrometers that exist on the inner surface.

The purpose of the present invention is to prevent the generation of coarse foam caused by protrusions on the inside side of a beverage container or carbonated beverage handling device.

One aspect of the present invention relates to a beverage container having an inner surface, wherein, in a roughness motif extracted by a motif method from a two-dimensional height map in which a height distribution of the inner surface is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane, when peaks whose height is 5% or less of the Sz value defined in "ISO 25178" are ignored, the average inter-peak distance in the two-dimensional plane between adjacent peaks is 4.0 μm or more, and the inner surface has an Ra defined in "ISO 4287" in the range of 20 to 98 nm.

A second aspect of the present invention relates to a carbonated beverage handling utensil having an inner surface, wherein, in a roughness motif extracted by a motif method from a two-dimensional height map in which a height distribution of the inner surface is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane, when peaks whose height is 5% or less of the Sz value defined in "ISO 25178" are ignored, the average value of the inter-peak distance in the two-dimensional plane between adjacent peaks is 4.0 μm or more, and the inner surface has an Ra defined in "ISO 4287" in the range of 20 to 98 nm.

The present invention can prevent the generation of coarse foam caused by protrusions on the inside side of a beverage container or carbonated beverage handling device.

1 is a diagram showing a beverage container according to one embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a wet blasting device. FIG. FIG. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of the first region in the inner region of sample A (embodiment) onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution of the second region in the inner region of sample A (embodiment) is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of a portion of the inner region of sample B (embodiment) onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of a portion of the inner region of sample C (embodiment) onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of a portion of the inner region of sample D (embodiment) onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of a portion of the inner region of sample E (embodiment) onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of a portion of the inner region of sample F (comparative example) onto a two-dimensional plane. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of the height distribution of a portion of the inner surface of sample E mapped onto the XY coordinate space. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing the evaluation results regarding ease of drying and ease of cleaning. FIG. FIG.

The following embodiments are described in detail with reference to the attached drawings. Note that the following embodiments do not limit the invention according to the claims, and not all combinations of features described in the embodiments are necessarily essential to the invention. Two or more of the features described in the embodiments may be combined in any desired manner. In addition, the same reference numbers are used for the same or similar configurations, and duplicate descriptions are omitted.

Figure 1 shows an example of a beverage container 10 according to one embodiment of the present invention. The beverage container 10 has an inner surface 12, which may be formed as a smooth surface that has been smoothed. By forming the inner surface 12 as a smooth surface, it is possible to prevent the inner surface 12 from fizzing the carbonated beverage 20 and from forming coarse bubbles due to the fizzing. On the other hand, if the inner surface 12 is not smoothed, as shown in Figure 11, the inner surface 12 has many minute protrusions that may fizz the carbonated beverage and form coarse bubbles. Here, Figure 11 is a two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution in a portion of the inner surface 12 that has not been smoothed is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane. Wet blasting may be used for the smoothing process.

Figure 2 shows a schematic configuration of a wet blasting device 100 for performing wet blasting. The wet blasting device 100 may include a holding unit 110 that holds a semi-finished beverage container 10 as a workpiece, and a spray nozzle 120 that sprays a slurry toward the inner surface 12 of the semi-finished beverage container 10 held by the holding unit 110. The slurry may be formed, for example, by mixing particles (e.g., stones, glass, or plastic) and a liquid (e.g., water or a chemical solution). The holding unit 110 may, for example, rotate the beverage container 10 around its axis. The wet blasting device 100 may include a change mechanism 130 that changes the relative position and/or relative angle between the beverage container 10 held by the holding unit 110 and the spray nozzle 120.

Figures 3 and 4 show the evaluation results of samples A, B, C, D, E, and F (embodiments) that were subjected to wet blasting as a flattening treatment of the inner surface 12, and sample F (comparative example) that was not subjected to wet blasting. Here, A1 shows the evaluation result of the first location of sample A, and A2 shows the evaluation result of the second location of sample A. The blasting conditions are shown in Figures 14 and 15.

Here, FIG. 15(a) shows common conditions for samples A, B, C, D, and E, and FIG. 15(b) shows individual conditions for samples A, B, C, D, and E. The projection distance is the distance between the sample (semi-finished beverage container 10) and the injection nozzle 120, as determined as shown in FIG. 14. The sample tilt angle is the angle between the axis of the sample and the horizontal axis. The injection nozzle tilt angle is the angle between the axis of the sample and the axis of the injection nozzle 120. The scanning process is the scanning method of the injection nozzle 120. The sample rotation speed is the rotation speed of the sample. The scanning count is the number of times the injection nozzle 120 is scanned. The air pressure is the pressure of the air supplied to the injection nozzle 120. The scanning process speed is the speed at which the injection nozzle 120 is scanned. The scanning process time is the time it takes to scan the injection nozzle 120. The stop time is the time for the injection nozzle 120 to stop at the stop position (injection nozzle tilt angle) shown in FIG. 14 after the start of the wet blasting process. The total processing time is the total time for the wet blasting process to be performed on the sample. The wet blasting device used was a wet blasting device available from Maco Corporation. The slurry used was alumina with a particle size of 3 μm at a concentration of 15% vol.%. Samples A, B, C, D, E, and F were made of glass. Please note that the blasting conditions and other conditions listed here are merely exemplary.

The initial gas volume [GV], the gas volume after 15 minutes [GV], and the gas volume difference [GV] are the results of evaluating the carbon dioxide retention capacity of each sample. More specifically, after pouring carbonated water into the sample whose inner surface had been wetted in advance to remove dust, the sample was placed in a pressure-resistant container, and carbon dioxide gas was filled into the carbonated water until the internal pressure of the pressure-resistant container reached 0.5 MPa. The sample was then removed from the pressure-resistant container and evaluated. The initial gas volume [GV] is the gas volume of the carbonated water in the sample immediately after the sample was removed from the pressure-resistant container. The gas volume after 15 minutes [GV] is the gas volume of the carbonated water in the sample 15 minutes after the sample was removed from the pressure-resistant container. The gas volume difference [GV] is the difference between the initial gas volume [GV] and the gas volume after 15 minutes [GV]. A small gas volume difference [GV] indicates that little carbon dioxide escapes from the carbonated water in the sample (beverage container), i.e., the characteristics of the inner surface 12 are good. A large gas volume difference [GV] indicates that a large amount of carbon dioxide gas is escaping from the carbonated water in the sample (beverage container), i.e., the characteristics of the inner surface 12 are poor. The poor characteristics of the inner surface 12 suggest that the minute protrusions present on the inner surface 12 stimulate the carbonated water, generating bubbles. The gas volume was measured by placing the sample containing carbonated water in a sealable container, setting the internal pressure to 0.5 MPa, and sending the carbonated water through a tube placed in the carbonated water to a CarboQC manufactured by Anton Paar.

It can be seen that the gas volume difference [GV] is considerably smaller for samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments) whose inner surface 12 has been wet blasted, compared to sample F (comparison example) whose inner surface 12 has not been wet blasted. However, the evaluation results for line roughness (ISO 4287) and surface roughness (ISO 25178) show no significant differences between samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments) and sample F (comparison example). On the other hand, there is a significant difference in the inter-mountain distance between samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments) and sample F (comparison example).

Therefore, samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments) that were wet blasted and sample F (comparative example) whose inner surface 12 was not wet blasted can be distinguished by the inter-peak distance. The inter-peak distance is the distance in the two-dimensional plane between adjacent peaks (between adjacent peaks) in the roughness motif extracted by the motif method from the two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution of the inner surface 12 is mapped onto the two-dimensional plane. Here, the distance between peaks in the two-dimensional plane is evaluated as the distance in the two-dimensional plane between the tops of adjacent peaks. The inter-peak distance may be expressed as the peak distance. The inter-peak distance in the evaluation results shown in FIG. 4 was obtained using a non-contact surface property measuring device (PF-60) manufactured by Mitaka Koki Co., Ltd. and the motif analysis function of the three-dimensional surface property analysis software (MitakaMap). At this time, it was set to ignore peaks whose height is 5% or less of the Sz value and to combine with neighboring motifs.

Figure 5 shows a two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution of a first region on the inner surface 12 of sample A is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane. Figure 6 shows a two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution of a second region on the inner surface 12 of sample A is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane. Similarly, Figures 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 show two-dimensional height maps in which the height distribution of a portion of the inner surface 12 of samples B to F is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane, respectively.

The motif method is specified in JIS B0631 (2000) as a standard for evaluating line roughness. The inter-peak distance corresponds to the "length of the roughness motif" in JIS B0631 (2000). However, JIS B0631 (2000) only gives an evaluation standard for line roughness (roughness in one dimension), so it is necessary to extend this to a two-dimensional evaluation standard. This can be achieved by extracting roughness motifs for multiple lines parallel to the X axis and multiple lines parallel to the Y direction in the XY coordinate system that defines two dimensions, and mapping the extracted roughness motifs into the XY coordinate space.

Figure 12 shows an example of the height distribution of a portion of the inner surface 12 of sample E, mapped onto the XY coordinate space. Within this region, there are three peaks (peaks in the roughness motif) in the roughness motif extracted by the motif method, and their peaks are indicated as M1, M2, and M3. The distance L1 between M1 and M2 is the inter-peak distance between adjacent peaks in a two-dimensional plane (XY coordinate space). The distance L2 between M2 and M3 is the inter-peak distance between adjacent peaks in a two-dimensional plane (XY coordinate space). In Figure 12, there are pairs of adjacent peaks, including a pair of a peak with a peak M1 and a peak with a peak M2, and a pair of a peak with a peak M2 and a peak with a peak M3, and no other pairs exist. L1 is the maximum value of the inter-peak distances L1 and L2 in a two-dimensional plane between adjacent peaks in a roughness motif extracted by the motif method, and L2 is the minimum value of the inter-peak distances L1 and L2 in a two-dimensional plane between adjacent peaks in a roughness motif extracted by the motif method. (L1+L2)/2 is the average value (arithmetic mean value) of the inter-peak distances L1 and L2 in a two-dimensional plane between adjacent peaks in a roughness motif extracted by the motif method.

In the evaluation results shown in FIG. 4, the average value of the inter-mountain distance is 4.0 μm or more in samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments), and the average value of the inter-mountain distance is 3.37 μm in sample F (comparison), which is less than 4.0 μm. In addition, in the evaluation results shown in FIG. 4, the maximum value of the inter-mountain distance is 7.0 μm or more in samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments), and the maximum value of the inter-mountain distance is 5.24 μm in sample F (comparison), which is less than 7.0 μm. On the other hand, in the evaluation results shown in FIG. 4, the gas volume difference is 0.6 [GV] or less in samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments), and the gas volume difference is 0.90 [GV] in sample F (comparison). Therefore, when the gas volume difference is the evaluation item, all of samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments) are superior to sample F (comparison). Therefore, it is preferable that the beverage container 10 has an average inter-peak distance on its inner surface 12 of 4.0 μm or more. It is also preferable that the beverage container 10 has a maximum inter-peak distance on its inner surface 12 of 7.0 μm or more.

In the evaluation results shown in FIG. 4, when comparing samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments), the average inter-mountain distance is 10.0 μm or less in samples A, B, C, D, and E, and the average inter-mountain distance is 11.10 μm in sample D, which is greater than 10.0. In addition, the maximum inter-mountain distance is 15.0 μm or less in samples A, B, C, D, and E, and the maximum inter-mountain distance is 17.20 μm in sample D, which is greater than 15.0. On the other hand, the gas volume difference is 0.50 [GV] or less in samples A, B, C, and E, and the gas difference is 0.57 [GV] in sample D. Therefore, it is preferable that the average inter-mountain distance of the inner surface 12 of the beverage container 10 is 10.0 μm or less. It is also preferable that the maximum inter-mountain distance of the inner surface 12 of the beverage container 10 is 15.0 μm or less.

Figure 13 shows the evaluation results for ease of drying and ease of cleaning. Ease of drying was evaluated by washing samples A to F with tap water, leaving them with the opening facing downwards, and then evaluating the presence or absence of water droplets on the inner surface 12 minutes later, where ◯ indicates that there were no water droplets on the inner surface, and × indicates that there were water droplets on the inner surface. It was confirmed that the water droplets had disappeared in samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiment), but many water droplets remained in sample F (comparative example).

The ease of cleaning is shown by applying grease (Lithium EP Cartridge, manufactured by Nippon Grease Co., Ltd.) to the inside surfaces of samples A to F and cleaning them with a cleaning machine (Hoshizaki Corporation's commercial dishwasher, JW-350RUF-R model). It was confirmed that grease stains were completely removed after 17 washes for samples A, B, C, D, and E (embodiments), but it was confirmed that grease stains remained for sample F (comparison example) even after 25 washes.

The beverage containers 10 in the embodiment samples A, B, C, D, and E are made of glass, but the beverage containers 10 may be made of resin, metal such as stainless steel, or ceramics.

The manufacturing method of the beverage container is described below. The manufacturing method may include a preparation step of preparing a semi-finished beverage container 10 (corresponding to sample F) and a processing step of performing wet blasting on the inner surface 12 of the semi-finished beverage container 10. In the processing step, the wet blasting may be performed so that the mountain-to-mountain distance in the two-dimensional plane between adjacent mountains is increased in a roughness motif extracted by a motif method from a two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution of the inner surface 12 is mapped onto the two-dimensional plane.

The technology applied to the beverage device described above can be applied, for example, to the inner surface of a carbonated beverage handling device that handles carbonated beverages. The inner surface is a surface that can come into contact with carbonated beverages. The carbonated beverage handling device can include, for example, a tank for producing or storing carbonated beverages, a transfer pipe for carbonated beverages, or a dispenser for dispensing carbonated beverages. The carbonated beverage handling device has an inner surface, and in a roughness motif extracted by a motif method from a two-dimensional height map in which the height distribution of the inner surface is mapped onto a two-dimensional plane, the average value of the inter-peak distance between adjacent peaks in the two-dimensional plane can be 4.0 μm or more. The average value of the inter-peak distance can be 10.0 μm or less. The maximum value of the inter-peak distance can be 7.0 μm or more. The maximum value of the inter-peak distance can be 15.0 μm or less.

The invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications and variations are possible within the scope of the invention.

10: Beverage container, 12: Inner surface, 100: Wet blasting device, 110: Holding part, 120: Spray nozzle, 130: Change mechanism

Claims (6)

1. A beverage container having an interior surface, comprising:
In a roughness motif extracted by a motif method from a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of the inner surface onto a two-dimensional plane, when peaks whose heights are 5% or less of the Sz value defined in "ISO 25178" are ignored, the average value of the inter-peak distance between adjacent peaks on the two-dimensional plane is 4.0 μm or more, and
The inner surface has an Ra in the range of 20 to 98 nm as specified in "ISO 4287";
A beverage container characterized by: The average value of the inter-mountain distance is 10.0 μm or less.
2. The beverage container of claim 1. The maximum inter-mountain distance is 7.0 μm or more.
3. A beverage container according to claim 1 or 2. The maximum inter-mountain distance is 15.0 μm or less.
4. A beverage container according to claim 3. Consisting of glass, resin, metal, or ceramics.
5. A beverage container according to any one of claims 1 to 4. 1. A carbonated beverage handling device having an interior surface, comprising:
In a roughness motif extracted by a motif method from a two-dimensional height map obtained by mapping the height distribution of the inner surface onto a two-dimensional plane, when peaks whose heights are 5% or less of the Sz value defined in "ISO 25178" are ignored, the average value of the inter-peak distance between adjacent peaks on the two-dimensional plane is 4.0 μm or more, and
The inner surface has an Ra in the range of 20 to 98 nm as specified in "ISO 4287";
A carbonated beverage handling device characterized by: