Abstract
The present invention is directed to a storage assembly (1) for storing active substances (3) for producing an ingestible product (23). The storage assembly (1) comprises a plurality of storage elements (2), wherein the plurality of storage elements (2) is grouped into two or more groups of storage elements (2). For each group the storage elements (2) of the respective group have stored the same type of an active substance (3). At least one group includes at least two storage elements (2). For each one of the storage elements (2) of the plurality of storage elements (2) the storage element has stored one or more portions of an active substance (3), the portions containing the same amount of the active substance (3), defined as dose bit. For at least one group the dose bits of the storage elements (2) are defined in accordance to a dose pattern, which is designed such that the respective type of active substance (3) can be dosed over a given range and with a given precision for producing the ingestible product (23) by using one or more portions of the storage elements (2) of the respective group.
Claims
1. A storage assembly for storing active substances for producing an ingestible product, the storage assembly comprising: a plurality of storage elements, wherein the plurality of storage elements is grouped into two or more groups of storage elements, wherein for each group the storage elements of the respective group have stored the same type of an active substance, wherein at least one group includes at least two storage elements, wherein for each one of the storage elements of the plurality of storage elements has stored one or more portions of an active substance, the one or more portions containing the same amount of the active substance, defined as a dose bit, and wherein for at least one group the dose bits of the storage elements are defined in accordance a dose pattern, such that the respective type of active substance can be dosed over a given range and with a given precision for producing the ingestible product by using the one or more portions of the storage elements of the respective group, wherein the storage assembly is configured such that the ingestible product can be produced by using one portion from each storage element of a subset of storage elements and wherein the storage elements are designed such that the dose bit and/or type of the active substance stored in each of the storage elements is identified by an element property of the storage element and an assignment information of the storage assembly.
2. (canceled)
3. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein at least one group comprises more than 2 storage elements.
4. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the storage assembly includes at least 8 groups of storage elements.
5. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the dose bits of at least one group are defined in accordance with a dose pattern, which is based on at least one of: a binary system, a decimal system, an octal system, a hexadecimal system, a 1-2-5 system, a Fibonacci system, or any combination thereof.
6. (canceled)
7. (canceled)
8. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of storage elements has one or more of the following forms: a cavity, a globule, a microcapsule, a pill, a reservoir or a coated carrier.
9. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the storage elements are arranged in one or more of: a three-dimensional lattice, a two-dimensional array, a one-dimensional array, a chain along a line or wire, an array along a curve, a loose or rigid grouping in a container, or any combination thereof.
10. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the element property is related to one or more of the storage element in the storage assembly, an externally readable code such as a pattern or color, an electromagnetic property of the storage element, any other physical property, any other chemical property, or any combination thereof.
11. (canceled)
12. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the storage elements are designed such that the storage elements are selectively activated based on an activation property of the storage elements.
13. The storage assembly according to claim 12, further comprising: an assembly property which enables a retrieval of the assignment information of the storage assembly.
14. The storage assembly according to claim 13, wherein the assignment information is kept secret from the end user.
15. A plurality of storage assemblies according to claim 1, wherein each storage assembly has an individual assignment.
16. A production device for producing an ingestible product, the production device comprising a storage assembly according to claim 1 and a discharging means configured to discharge portions of the active substances from the storage elements, the production device configured to select the subset of the storage elements, discharge a portion of the active substances from each selected storage element, and combine the discharged active substances to form the ingestible product.
17. (canceled)
18. (canceled)
19. The production device according to claim 16, further configured to receive data defining the storage elements to be selected, and discharge the portions of the active substances from the selected storage elements.
20. (canceled)
21. The production device according to claim 16, wherein the production device is configured such that a bit pattern can be applied, each element of the bit pattern defining whether a portion of the active substance stored in the respective storage element is required for producing the ingestible product.
22. A method for producing an ingestible product using a storage assembly according to claim 1, the method comprising: receiving data defining the storage elements to be selected; discharging the portions of the active substances from the selected storage elements; selecting a subset of the storage elements; discharging from each selected storage element a portion of the active substance; and combining the discharged active substances to form the ingestible product.
23. (canceled)
24. (canceled)
25. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein at least one group comprises more than 6 storage elements.
26. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein at least one group comprises more than 12 storage elements.
27. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the storage assembly comprises at least 20 groups of storage elements.
28. The storage assembly according to claim 1, wherein the storage assembly comprises at least 100 groups of storage elements.
29. The storage assembly of claim 10, wherein the externally readable code comprises at least one of a pattern or a color.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0067] In order to describe the manner in which advantages and features of the disclosure can be obtained, in the following a more particular description of the principles briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. These drawings depict only exemplary embodiments of the disclosure and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope. The principles of the disclosure are described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:
[0068] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic of an embodiment of a storage assembly where the storage elements are arranged in a two-dimensional array;
[0069] FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic of the cross section of a blister packaging of an embodiment of the storage assembly with two-dimensional arrangement of the storage elements;
[0070] FIG. 3 illustrates assignment information in form of a look-up table of an embodiment of the storage assembly with the position of the storage elements as an element property;
[0071] FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of the storage assembly integrated into a bottle cap to generate flavored beverages;
[0072] FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of the storage assembly wherein the storage elements are globules contained loosely in a bowl;
[0073] FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of the storage assembly wherein the storage elements are globules arranged as one-dimensional array within a tube;
[0074] FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of the storage assembly wherein the storage elements are reservoirs each containing a plurality of globules of the same type;
[0075] FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of the storage assembly wherein the storage elements are reservoirs containing the active substance in a liquid form;
[0076] FIG. 9 illustrates a further embodiment of the storage assembly wherein the storage elements are reservoirs;
[0077] FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of the storage assembly wherein the storage elements are formed by microcapsules;
[0078] FIG. 11 illustrates a dose pattern comprising dose bits based on the binary system;
[0079] FIG. 12 illustrates a dose pattern comprising dose bits based on the decimal system;
[0080] FIG. 13 illustrates a dose pattern comprising dose bits based on a 1-2-5 system;
[0081] FIG. 14 illustrates a dose pattern comprising dose bits based on a Fibonacci system;
[0082] FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram of a production device for producing an ingestible product comprising a storage assembly (before the production).
[0083] FIG. 16 illustrates a block diagram of the production device for producing an ingestible product comprising a storage assembly (after the production).
DESCRIPTION
[0084] FIG. 1 shows a schematic of one embodiment of a storage assembly 1 for storing active substances 3 for producing an ingestible product. The storage assembly comprises a plurality of groups of storage elements. The storage elements 2 of different groups have stored a different type of active substance 3. The storage elements of the same groups have stored the same type of active substance. In this embodiment, the storage elements 2 are arranged in a two-dimensional array. The signs “-”, “!”, “)”, “*”, “}” and “]” illustrate different types of active substances 3 and the number of signs illustrate the amount of the respective type of active substance stored. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the storage elements of the first group 30 have stored the active substances symbolized with the sign“-”, the storage elements of the second group 31 have stored the active substances symbolized with the sign “!” and the storage elements of the third group 32 have stored the active substances symbolized with the sign T. The storage elements of the same group have stored the same type of active substance. For example, the storage elements of the first group 30 have stored the active substance symbolized with the sign “-”. In this embodiment, each storage element of a group contains one portion of the same type of an active substance and the amount of the one portion of the active substance is defined as a dose bit. For example, the storage elements 30a, 30b and 30c in the group 30 contain the active substance sub 1, the amount of one portion of the active substance sub 1 stored in storage element 30a is dose bit 1, the amount of one portion of the active substance sub 1 stored in storage element 30b is dose bit 2 and the amount of one portion of the active substance sub 1 stored in storage element 30c is dose bit 3. The dose bit 1, dose 2 and dose bit 3 are defined in accordance to a dose pattern. Depending on the type of the active substance and the formula space to be spanned by the storage assembly, an appropriate dose pattern can be chosen.
[0085] In this embodiment, each storage element 2 contains only one portion. Therefore, the ingestible product can be produced by using the entire content of active substances 3 stored in a subset of the storage elements 2.
[0086] The number of the storage elements may vary in a wide range up to several thousand depending on the applications. In such embodiments, the storage assembly 1 can comprise 4096 storage elements arranged in an array of 64×64. Arranging a high number of storage elements 2 provides a versatile application of the storage assembly 1. For example, in the application that the assembly is applied for producing a flavoring product, a plurality of flavoring substances can be stored in the storage elements 2, such that most flavors can be realized by using this assembly 1. Each storage element 2 contains an active substance 3 in an amount of a dose bit defined in a dose pattern. In the 4096 storage elements, more than 300 active substances may be stored and for each active substance a dose pattern comprising between 8 and up to 20 dose bits may be employed. Some storage elements 2 contain the active substances 3 mixed with a substrate, which may be e.g. sugar or water or gum. The assembly 1 may further comprise a plurality of substrate storage elements 4, which contain only a substrate material such that a defined weight or size of an ingestible product may be achieved by adding the substrate material.
[0087] FIG. 2 illustrates one particular variant of the storage assembly in a form of a blister packaging 5. The active substances 3 are enclosed in cavities 2a formed between a top sheet 5a and a bottom sheet 5b. The top sheet 5a and the bottom sheet 5b may be made of paper, plastic, metal or other suitable material. The cavities 2a as the storage elements are separated by the glued part 5c and the active substances 3 are enclosed in the cavities 2. The active substances 3 are stored with or without a substrate in a solid form such as a pill or in a liquid form or in form of gel or powder. The blister packaging 5 can be used for a storage assembly shown in FIG. 1. The size and the weight of the storage assembly 1 comprising 4096 storage elements are in the range of several centimeter and several grams, respectively.
[0088] As shown in FIG. 1, an assembly property 6 is included on the storage assembly 1. FIG. 1 illustrates the variant, that the assembly property 6 is an externally readable code. After reading the assembly property 6, the assignment information associated to this storage assembly can be retrieved. The assignment information allows to determine the subset of the storage elements to be selected for producing the requested ingestible product.
[0089] FIG. 3 illustrates one variant of storing an assignment information 10 allocated to a storage assembly 1, such as in form of a look-up table. The assignment information includes 4096 data elements 11 corresponding to the 4096 storage elements. Each data element 11 describes the element property 12 of the storage element, the does bit and the type of the active substance stored in this storage element.
[0090] FIG. 3 depicts one example of using the position of the storage element as the element property 12. In particular, for the assembly arranged in an array shown in FIG. 1. By accessing the assignment information, the information about the type of the active substance 10 stored in each storage element and the dose bit of each storage element is gained. For example, the storage element at the position (1) comprises the active substance sub 20 in a dose bit B2 and the storage element at the position (4096) comprises the active substance sub 5 in a dose bit Z3. If other properties such as e.g. the color or the geometry of the storage element are chosen as the element property, the data element 11 includes the corresponding properties instead of the position.
[0091] FIG. 4 illustrates a cap 13 of a beverage container, in which the storage assembly 1 is embedded. The storage elements may be small cavities which contain the active substance as liquid, powder or in a solid water-soluble form. In order to produce a beverage, a subset of storage elements 2 is selected and opened to release the active substances 3 contained in the selected storage elements into the beverage. After a shake of the bottle, the beverage can be consumed.
[0092] FIG. 5 illustrates another embodiment of a storage assembly 1. In this embodiment, the storage element has the form of a globule 2b, namely a small sphere of e.g. 0.5 mm diameter, and contains the active substance mixed with or without the substrate, which is e.g. sugar. In a particular variant, about 4096 globules 2b are stored loosely in a container 7 having a nozzle 7a to allow the globules to be dropped one by one from the bowl. An externally readable assembly property 6 is arranged on the container which allows to retrieve the assignment information for each individual storage assembly. In this embodiment, an element property may be advantageously an externally detectable property such as for example a code, a pattern or a spectroscopic property, so that the globule 2b can be identified. Using the element property and the assignment information allows to determine the type and dose bit of active substances stored in each globule 2b. Each element of the assignment information includes e.g. the code, the pattern or the spectroscopic property of each globule 2b and the type and the dose bit of the active substance contained in each globule 2b.
[0093] FIG. 6 illustrates one embodiment of a storage assembly 1, in which the arrangement of the storage elements is in accordance to a one-dimensional array.
[0094] In this embodiment, about 4000 storage elements in form of the globules 2b are arranged in a tubular container such that they cannot swap positions. The globules can be discharged at one end of the tube one by one by opening a closure 8a arranged at one end of the tube. For this embodiment, the element property may be the position of the globules 2b in the linear chain of globules. The tubular container 8 is not limited to have a straight shape.
[0095] FIG. 7, FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 illustrate three embodiments of a storage assembly 1, in which the storage element is in a form of a reservoir 2c. The reservoirs 2c as storage elements may be arranged in a two-dimensional array or one-dimensional array depending on the number of storage elements required. A stable holding means is required to hold all the storage elements.
[0096] FIG. 7 shows a variant of a storage assembly 1 wherein the active substance 3 mixed with or without a substrate is provided in portions of a solid form such as a small pill. In each reservoir 2c, a plurality of portions of active substances are stored. Each of the portions of one storage element have the same amount of active substance, which is defined as a dose bit. FIG. 7 shows one embodiment, that each storage element includes three portions of active substances. Each reservoir 2c includes a flap 9a for discharging a single portion of the active substance in the form of a single pill containing one dose bit of active substance. In this embodiment, the element property 12 may be the position of the reservoir within the assembly as illustrated in FIG. 3 or an externally readable code, a pattern or a color marked on or near the reservoir.
[0097] The variant of the storage assembly shown in FIG. 7 allows to produce multiple different ingestible products.
[0098] FIG. 8 illustrates another variant of a storage assembly 1, in which the active substance is stored in a fluid form. The active substance may be mixed with a substrate fluid (diluted) or pure. The storage element includes a discharging means 9b which discharges a fixed portion of the fluid contained in the storage element when activated (e.g. a single drop dispenser). For each storage element in the assembly the concentration of the active substance in the fluid is configured such that a discharged portion contains the amount of active substance of the dose bit associated with this storage element. To produce an ingestible product a subset of storage elements is selected and for each selected storage element the discharging means 9b is activated to release a portion. The released portions collectively form the requested ingestible product, either with or without additional substrate material. With this variant of storage assembly multiple different ingestible products can be produces.
[0099] FIG. 9 illustrates a variant of a storage assembly 1, in which a continuous flow of an ingestible product can be produced. The active substances are stored in a fluid form. The active substances may be mixed with a substrate fluid (diluted) or pure. The doses in the formula are interpreted as the amount of active substance per time unit. And the dose bits associated to the storage elements are thus also interpreted as an amount of active substance per time unit. Each reservoir as the storage element comprises a valve 9c as the discharging means. It has only two states: open and closed. When activated it releases a defined constant flow (one defined portion per time unit) of material from the reservoir containing the active substance in amounts specified by the dose bit associated to the storage element. The storage elements may be pressurized to enable a constant flowrate. This variant of storage assembly is useful for a 3D food printer. In such an application the deposited material can be varied in quality according to different formulas which results in different selection pattern for the storage elements applied.
[0100] FIG. 10 illustrates a further embodiment of a storage assembly 1. In this embodiment, the storage element is formed by a pinch of microcapsules 2d containing the active substance. The storage assembly may have the form of an ingestible product such as a candy or a chewing gum. A plurality of different types of microcapsules are included in the storage assembly. Every type of microcapsules forms a separate storage element containing one portion of the active substance. The amount of active substance contained in a storage element is the dose bit and is given by the number of microcapsules of this type and the amount of active substance in each microcapsule of this type.
[0101] In order to produce an ingestible product, a subset of all the types of microcapsules may be activated by e.g. an electromagnetic wave to release the active substances contained therein. The frequency of the electromagnetic wave being specific for each storage element. This has the advantage that no waste is generated: the unopened capsules are ingested as well but keep the substance enclosed. Also, the process of production of the ingestible product is simplified since after selection and activation of the storage elements the product is ready for consumption, the substances being homogeneously distributed.
[0102] In FIG. 10, different types of microcapsules A, B, C are illustrated in the round shape, oval shape and square shape, respectively. For example, the type A includes the active substance Sub 1 in dose bit 1, the type B includes the same type of active substance Sub 1 but in dose bit 2 and the type C includes a different type of active substance Sub 2 in dose bit 3. All the microcapsules having the round or oval shape, namely type A and B are grouped in one group, because they contain the same type of active substances Sub 1. The microcapsules of type C is grouped to another group, because they contain another type of active substance Sub 2.
[0103] Each storage element may be individually activated by an electromagnetic wave having a particular wavelength. In this embodiment, an element property may be advantageously a wavelength of the electromagnetic wave. Therefore, the assignment information allocated to this assembly, relates instead of a position of a storage element as shown in FIG. 3, a wavelength of an electromagnetic wave to the active substance and dose bit contained in a storage element.
[0104] To produce the requested ingestible product, a subset of the storage elements are selected by applying electromagnetic waves having the selected wavelengths, the corresponding microcapsules included in the candy are activated and the active substances stored are released from the activated microcapsules.
[0105] FIG. 11 illustrates a dose pattern A based on the binary system. The pattern A comprises for example 20 dose bits A1 to A20. The dose bit A1 is a basic dose D.sub.b, which may be the detection threshold value of an active substance. The dose bit A2 is two times of the basic dose and the dose bits A3, A4, A5 are 4, 8, 16 times of the basic dose, respectively. Consequently, the dose bit A20 has 2.sup.19 times of the basic dose. If a dose of 150,000 times of basic dose is required, the dose bits A18, A15, A12, A19, A8, A7, A6 and A5 may be combined, because the sum of them is 150000 times of basic dose.
[0106] FIG. 12 illustrates a dose pattern A based on the decimal system. The pattern A comprises for example 54 dose bits A1 to A54. The dose bit A1 is a basic dose D.sub.b, which may be the detection threshold value of an active substance. The dose bit A10 is ten times of the basic dose and the dose bits A19, A28, A37 and A46 are 100, 1000, 10000 and 100000 times of the basic dose, respectively. In particular, several dose bits have the equal value, such as A1 to A9 and A10 to A18. If a dose of 150000 times of basic dose is required, the dose bits A37, A38, A39, A40, A41, and A46 may be combined, because the sum of them is 150000 times of the basic dose.
[0107] FIG. 13 illustrates a dose pattern A based on the 1-2-5 system. The pattern A comprises for example 24 dose bits A1 to A 24. The dose bit A1 is a basic dose D.sub.b, which may be the detection threshold value of an active substance. The dose bits A2 and A3 are two times of the basic dose and the dose bits A3 is 5 times of the basic dose, A5 is 10 times of the basic dose, A6 and A7 are 20 times of the basic dose. If a dose of 150000 times of the basic dose is required, the dose bits A20, and A19 may be combined, because the sum of them gives the value of 150000 times of basic dose.
[0108] FIG. 14 illustrates a dose pattern A based on a Fibonacci system. The pattern A comprises for example 26 dose bits A1 to A26. The dose bit A1 and A2 are basic dose D.sub.b, which may be the detection threshold value of an active substance. The dose bits A3 is two times of the basic dose and the dose bits A4 is 3 times of the basic dose, A5 is 8 times of the basic dose. The values of the subsequent dose bits are based on the Fibonacci numbers. This pattern allows a more balanced usage of the storage elements. For example, a dose of 15000 times of the basic dose is required, at least following two combinations of dose bits may fulfill this requirement: combining dose bits A5, A9, A12, A14, A16, A18, A20, A22 and A26; or combining dose units A5, A9, A10, A11, A12, A13, A14, A15, A16, A17, A18, A19, A20, A21 and A26.
[0109] FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram of a production device 20 for producing an ingestible product comprising a storage assembly disclosed in the present invention. The device comprises an operating unit 22 and a processing unit 21 connected to the operating unit. The operating unit is configured to select a subset of the storage elements and to discharge from each selected storage element one portion of the stored active substance and combine the discharged active substances to form the ingestible product. The processing unit 21 is configured to receive data defining the storage elements to be selected and control the operating unit 22 to discharge the portions of the active substances from the selected storage element.
[0110] FIGS. 15 and 16 illustrate the state of before and after the production of the ingestible product. As shown in FIG. 16, the ingestible product 23 comprises the active substances stored in the storage elements 1, 56, 58, 59, 78, and 79. For presenting the function of the device, a storage assembly 1 comprising 80 storage elements are shown in the FIGS. 15 and 16. However, the number of the storage elements included in the storage assembly is not limited to 80. Depending on the application, the number of the storage elements contained in the storage assembly may be up to several thousands.
LIST OF REFERENCES
[0111] 1 storage assembly [0112] 2 storage element [0113] 2a cavity [0114] 2b globule [0115] 2c reservoir [0116] 2d microcapsule [0117] 3 active substance [0118] 4 substrate storage element [0119] 5 blister packaging [0120] 5a top sheet [0121] 5b bottom sheet [0122] 5c glued part [0123] 6 assembly property [0124] 7 container [0125] 7a nozzle [0126] 8 tubular container [0127] 8a closure [0128] 9 reservoirs as storage element [0129] 9a flap [0130] 9b discharging means [0131] 9c valve [0132] 10 assignment information [0133] 11 data element [0134] 12 element property [0135] 13 cap [0136] 20 production device [0137] 21 processing unit [0138] 22 operating unit [0139] 23 ingestible product [0140] 30a, 30b, 30c storage elements of the first group [0141] 30, 31, 31 first, second and third group
