CONTAINER FOR INGREDIENTS FOR MAKING BEVERAGES

Abstract

The invention relates to a container for ingredients for making beverages in the form of a rotation-symmetric truncated cone which is open at the larger bottom end of the truncated cone and closed at the smaller top end of the truncated cone by a top section of the truncated cone which preferably is of a flat, rounded, inclined or dented form or a combination of these forms, wherein the larger bottom end of the truncated cone can be closed by a base plate or membrane and can have an outward flange section to which the base plate or membrane can be attached, and wherein the thickness of the container wall is non-uniform, the container wall forming one or more circumferential stiffening rings which cover 10 to 50% of the container height, and wherein the wall thickness of the stiffening rings is at least 50% higher than the wall thickness in the remaining container wall outside the stiffening rings, the container having a maximum height of 5 cm and a maximum diameter without flange of 6 cm.

Claims

1. A container for ingredients for making beverages in the form of a rotation-symmetric truncated cone which is open at a larger bottom end of the truncated cone and closed at a smaller top end of the truncated cone by a top section of the truncated cone, wherein the larger bottom end of the truncated cone can be closed by a base plate or membrane and can have an outward flange section to which the base plate or membrane can be attached, and wherein a thickness of the container wall is non-uniform, the container wall forming one or more circumferential stiffening rings which cover 10 to 50% of the container height, and wherein a wall thickness of the stiffening rings is at least 50% higher than the wall thickness in the remaining container wall outside the stiffening rings, the container having a maximum height of 5 cm and a maximum diameter without flange of 6 cm, wherein the truncated cone including the top section is prepared in one piece.

2. The container according to claim 1, wherein the stiffening rings are located in a section extending from 10% to 90 of the container height.

3. The container according to claim 1, having 1 to 5 stiffening rings.

4. The container according to claim 1, wherein the wall thickness in the stiffening rings is at least two times the thickness outside the stiffening rings.

5. The container according to claim 1, wherein the height of the container is in the range of from 2 to 3.5 cm and/or the cone diameter of the top section of the truncated cone is in the range of from 1.6 to 2.8 cm and/or the cone diameter at the bottom of the truncated cone, without flange, is in the range of from 1.8 to 3.2 cm.

6. The container according to claim 1, wherein the stiffening rings cover 15 to 40%of the container height.

7. The container according to claim 1, wherein the container wall thickness is in the range of from 0.1 to 1.0 mm.

8. The container according to claim 1, wherein one the stiffening rings is located in the middle third of the container height.

9. The container according to claim 1 formed of a thermoplastic polymer.

10. The container according to claim 9, wherein the thermoplastic polymer is selected from the group consisting of polyolefins, polystyrene, polyalkylene terephthalates, polyesters, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polybutylene terephthalate, and biodegradable polyesters.

11. A process for preparing a container as claimed in claim 1 by injection-molding, a material forming the container.

12. A capsule containing ingredients for making beverages in a container as claimed in claim 1, which is closed at the bottom end by a base plate or membrane.

13. The capsule according to claim 12, wherein the base plate or membrane is formed of aluminum, a thermoplastic polymer, or a combination thereof.

14. (canceled)

15. A process for making beverages by inserting the capsule according to claim 12 in a beverage-preparing apparatus in which water inlet and outlet holes are provided in the capsule and a water stream is directed through the capsule and recovered in a beverage recipient.

16. The container according to claim 1 wherein the top section of the truncated core is in a flat, rounded, inclined, or dented form, or a combination of these forms.

17. The process according to claim 1 wherein the water inlet and outlet holes are provided by puncturing the top section and the base plate, or membrane thereof.

Description

EXAMPLES

Example 1

[0182] FIG. 1 shows a cross section of two stacked capsules according to the present invention. The capsule has the overall shape of a truncated cone with a height of 30.0 mm, a diameter at the top section of the truncated cone of 22.4 mm and a maximum diameter at the bottom of the truncated cone of 28.4 mm without flange and 37.0 mm with flange. There are three circumferential stiffening rings provided in the structure, the middle stiffening ring having the highest wall thickness and lower stiffening ring having the lowest wall thickness of the stiffening rings. The wall thickness of the truncated cone was 0.3 mm outside the stiffening rings, for the lowest stiffening ring 0.4 mm, for the middle stiffening ring 0.72 mm, and for the upper stiffening ring 0.55 mm. The stiffening rings cover 22.9% of the capsule height.

[0183] The capsule showed a buckling pressure of 0.66 bar and a weight of 1.6 g.

[0184] A comparative capsule having a constant 0.7 mm wall thickness has a buckling pressure of 1.1 bar and a weight of 2.64 g.

Example 2

[0185] FIG. 2 shows the outer shape of the truncated cone without flange. The thickness for the different layers is indicated for layers T1 to T15 [in mm]. The total height of the truncated cone is 27.9 mm, the diameter of the top section of the truncated cone 25 mm and the diameter of the bottom of the truncated cone 28.3 mm.

[0186] The buckling pressure of this capsule is 0.40 bar and the capsule has a weight of 1.49 g.

[0187] If, for comparison, a constant wall thickness of 0.3 mm was employed, the buckling pressure was 0.3 bar.

Example 3

[0188] Two comparative coffee capsules which can be found in the marketplace were compared with a capsule design according to the present invention, where three stiffening rings were provided in the truncated cone. The stiffening rings cover approximately 22% of the capsule height.

[0189] The results are shown in enclosed FIG. 3. As it is evident from FIG. 3, all capsules had an identical weight and a similar volume.

[0190] However, for the capsule containing three stiffening rings according to the present invention, the buckling pressure could be increased to 0.497 bar which is significantly higher when compared to the buckling pressure of the comparative designs.