JP2016217547A - Automatic ice making machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an automatic ice making machine in which corrosion products such as rust are not mixed in ice-making water and ice, by improving anti-corrosion properties of an ice making part, and which has enhanced reliability of food sanitation.SOLUTION: An automatic ice making machine circulates and supplies ice-making water to an ice making part 10 cooled by a cooling pipe, and generates ice of required shapes. In the automatic ice making machine, on the outermost layer of the ice making part 10, an electroless nickel-phosphor plated coating 22 containing 10%-15% of phosphorus components is formed with thickness of 15 μm or greater.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to an automatic ice making machine for continuously producing ice blocks by supplying ice making water to an ice making part cooled by an evaporator, and more specifically, can improve the corrosion resistance of the ice making part. It relates to a coating.

  An automatic ice maker that continuously manufactures a large amount of ice blocks is suitably used in facilities such as coffee shops and restaurants and other kitchens. These automatic ice makers include a jet type automatic ice machine that continuously produces ice of the required shape by supplying ice making water from below to a large number of ice making chambers that open downward, and an upper surface of an inclined ice making plate. There is a flow-down type automatic ice making machine or the like that makes ice-making water flow down to produce plate ice on the ice-making plate.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 2, there is a jet automatic ice maker equipped with a so-called closed cell type ice making mechanism 13. This closed cell type ice making mechanism 13 includes an ice making chamber 10 as an ice making section in which a large number of ice making chambers 12 opening downward are defined, and a tiltable water dish 40 is provided below the ice making chamber 10. The pivot 42 is pivotally supported. An ice making water tank 44 for storing ice making water supplied from the water supply unit 43 is integrally provided at the lower portion of the water tray 40. An evaporator 48 led out from the refrigeration system 46 is meanderingly disposed on the upper surface of the ice making chamber 10, and the refrigerant from the refrigeration system 46 including the compressor CM, the condenser CD and the expansion valve EV is circulated to the evaporator 48. By supplying, the ice making chamber 10 is cooled to below freezing point. The discharge side of the compressor CM and the suction side of the evaporator 48 are connected by a bypass pipe 50, and a hot gas valve HV is provided in the bypass pipe 50.

  During the ice making operation of the automatic ice making machine, the ice making water is sprayed and supplied from the water tray 40, which has closed the ice making chamber 12 from below, to each ice making chamber 12, so that ice blocks are forcibly cooled in the ice making chamber 12. Is formed. Further, during the deicing operation, the water tray 40 is tilted obliquely downward to open the ice making chamber 12, and the hot gas valve HV is opened to supply hot gas from the compressor CM to the evaporator 48. As a result, the icing between the ice making chamber 12 and the ice block is melted, and the ice block is dropped to the ice storage chamber located below by its own weight.

  FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of the ice making chamber 10 disposed in the jet type automatic ice making machine. The ice making chamber 10 is basically composed of a box-shaped outer frame 14 opened downward, and a lattice-shaped partition member 30 disposed inside the outer frame 14 and defining the plurality of ice making chambers 12. It is configured. A cooling pipe 48 as the evaporator is meanderingly disposed on the upper surface of the outer frame 14 in close contact therewith. The ice making chamber 10 is manufactured by assembling components such as the outer frame 14, the partition member 30, and the cooling pipe 48 that are molded into a required shape. That is, the ice making chamber 10 accommodates the partition member 30 in which a plurality of metal plates are assembled in a lattice shape in the outer frame 14 formed into a box shape by bending a metal plate, and the upper surface of the outer frame 14. The cooling pipe 48 having a meandering shape by bending a long hollow pipe is arranged and assembled. The outer frame 14 and the partition member 30 are joined by means such as caulking and brazing, and the outer frame 14 and the cooling pipe 48 are joined by brazing. When the caulking is fixed, a protrusion 31 is provided on the upper part of the partition member 30 and a caulking hole 14a is formed on the upper surface of the outer frame. The caulking hole 14a is inserted into the upper surface of the outer frame 14 This is done by crushing the protruding protrusion 31 with a hammer or the like. Further, an engaging groove is provided at a side end portion of each partition plate 30a constituting the partition member 30, and is engaged with the engaging piece at a position corresponding to the engaging piece in the outer frame 14. And both the members 14 and 30 may be positioned.

  The components of the ice making chamber 10 such as the outer frame 14, the partition member 30, and the cooling pipe 48 are made of a metal material such as copper having good thermal conductivity as the substrate 16 (see FIG. 4). Heat exchange with the circulating refrigerant can be performed satisfactorily. The base 16 made of copper or the like is excellent in thermal conductivity but easily rusted. Therefore, as shown in an enlarged view in FIG. 4, a molten tin plating film 20 is formed on the surface of the ice making chamber 10 as a rust prevention treatment. It is common. The molten tin plating film 20 is obtained by immersing the entire ice making chamber 10 in which the constituent members 14, 30, and 48 are assembled in a tin bath containing molten tin as a main component. Formed on the surface. The plating process may be performed individually for each of the component members 14, 30, and 48. In this case, the ice making chamber 10 is assembled with the component members 14, 30, and 48 after the plating process. Assembled. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses an automatic ice making machine including an ice making chamber having a surface on which a molten tin plating film is applied.

Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-30702

  The molten tin-plated film is less susceptible to rusting than a base made of copper or the like, but when an oxidizing substance or the like is included in the use atmosphere, corrosion products such as rust may be generated over time. Since this corrosion product is easily peeled off from the plating film, there are problems such as the corrosion product being mixed into ice blocks. In addition, since the molten tin plating film has low resistance to sterilizing agents such as sodium hypochlorite and electrolytic acid water, it is not suitable for sterilizing the ice making chamber in which the film is formed with these chemicals.

  The present invention has been proposed in order to solve these problems inherently in the automatic ice making machine according to the prior art, and provides an automatic ice making machine that improves the corrosion resistance of the ice making part. The purpose is to do.

  In order to overcome the above-mentioned problems and achieve the intended object, the invention according to claim 1 is an automatic ice maker that circulates and supplies ice-making water to an ice-making part cooled by an evaporator to generate ice of a required shape. The gist is that an electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film containing 10% to 15% of a phosphorus component is formed in a thickness of 15 μm or more on the outermost layer of the ice making part.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, the corrosion resistance of the ice making part can be improved by the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film formed on the outermost layer of the ice making part. For this reason, since it is possible to suppress the occurrence of corrosion even under a use atmosphere in which corrosion proceeds in the conventional ice making unit, it is possible to manufacture ice. Moreover, since the corrosion resistance with respect to a disinfectant is also high, it becomes possible to keep an ice-making part hygienic by the maintenance using a disinfectant.

The gist of the invention according to claim 2 is that the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film is directly formed on the outer surface of the base of the ice making part.
According to the second aspect of the invention, the electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film formed on the outermost layer of the ice making part improves the corrosion resistance of the ice making part. There is no need to apply a multi-layer coating, and the production efficiency can be increased.

  According to the automatic ice making machine of the present invention, since the corrosion resistance of the ice making part is improved, corrosion products such as rust are not mixed into ice making water or ice, and the reliability of food hygiene can be improved.

It is sectional drawing to which the surface layer part of the ice making room which concerns on an Example was expanded, (a) is what gave the electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film to the outer surface of a base material, (b) is (a) A base layer is provided under the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film, and (c) is an adjustment layer provided between the substrate (b) and the base layer. It is a schematic block diagram of a jet type automatic ice making machine. It is a disassembled perspective view of the ice making chamber which concerns on a prior art. It is sectional drawing to which the surface layer part of the ice making chamber shown in FIG. 3 was expanded.

  Next, a preferred embodiment of an automatic ice making machine according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the embodiment, an ice making chamber used in a so-called closed cell type automatic ice making machine as an ice making unit will be described. As the ice making unit, an ice making chamber of a so-called open cell type automatic ice making machine that supplies ice making water without going through a water tray, an ice making plate of a flow down type automatic ice making machine that flows ice making water down to the ice making surface, etc. It may be. The ice making chamber described in the embodiment has the same basic configuration as that of the conventional ice making chamber described with reference to FIG. 3, and therefore, the same reference numerals are used for the members already described.

(About automatic ice maker)
The automatic ice making machine according to the embodiment is required to circulate and supply ice making water to an ice making room (ice making part) 10 cooled by a cooling pipe 48 as an evaporator, like the conventional ice making room 10 described in FIG. Produces ice of shape. The ice making chamber 10 is basically composed of a box-shaped outer frame 14 opened downward, and a lattice-shaped partition member 30 disposed inside the outer frame 14 and defining a plurality of ice making chambers. The cooling pipe 48 is closely arranged in a meandering manner on the upper surface of the outer frame 14.

(About ice making room 10)
As shown in FIG. 1, the box-shaped outer frame 14, the lattice-shaped partition member 30, and the cooling pipe 48 constituting the ice making chamber 10 are made of metal or alloy having excellent thermal conductivity such as copper. The electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is formed on the outermost layer of the substrate 16. Here, the outermost layer of the ice making chamber 10 is a layer formed on a surface exposed to the outside in the ice making chamber 10. There may be a region where the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is not formed on a part of the exposed surface of the ice making chamber 10. As shown in FIG. 1A, the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 may be provided in contact with the outer surface of the substrate 16, and as shown in FIG. As a base of the nickel-phosphorous plating film 22, a base layer 24 made of a plating film such as nickel or palladium may be provided below the coating 22. Further, as shown in FIG. 1 (c), an adjustment layer 26 made of a plating film such as copper may be provided on the surface of the substrate 16 in order to prepare the surface of the substrate 16. If the substrate 16 contains an element such as tin or lead that inhibits the precipitation of nickel in the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating process described later, the base layer 24 is applied to the surface of the substrate 16. Is preferred. That is, the base layer 24 and the adjustment layer 26 are appropriately implemented according to the surface state of the substrate 16 or the surface state of the base on which the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is applied. The underlayer 24 and the adjustment layer 26 are not exposed to the outer surface of the ice making chamber 10 and may be any one that can change the surface state. For example, the thickness of the foundation layer 24 and the adjustment layer 26 may be about 1 μm.

(About electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film 22)
The electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film 22 formed on the outermost layer of the ice making chamber 10 is a so-called high phosphorus type containing a phosphorus component of 10% to 15% (mass percent concentration, the same applies hereinafter). Further, as shown in FIGS. 1A to 1C, the electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film 22 is formed so that the film thickness t is 15 μm or more. It should be noted that, by setting the film thickness of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 to 15 μm or more, it is possible to suppress the occurrence of pinholes reaching the substrate 16 or the base layer 24 or the adjustment layer 26. Confirmed by testing.

(About electroless nickel-phosphorus plating)
Here, the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating process for forming the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 will be described. In the electroless nickel-phosphorus plating treatment, the ice making chamber 10 is placed in a storage tank of a nickel-phosphorous plating solution mainly composed of a metal salt containing nickel such as nickel sulfate and a reducing agent such as sodium hypophosphite. It is carried out by so-called soaking. The nickel-phosphorous plating solution is adjusted so that the concentration of the phosphorus component in the formed electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is 10% to 15%. In addition, a required catalyst may be added to the nickel-phosphorous plating solution. When the adjustment layer 26 and the base layer 24 are provided between the substrate 16 and the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22, electroless nickel-phosphorous plating is performed after the surface treatment. Do. In the outermost layer of the ice making chamber 10 immersed in the storage tank, the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 made of a nickel alloy is formed by reducing and precipitating nickel cations derived from the metal salt. As described above, the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating treatment is performed until the film thickness of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 becomes 15 μm or more. In addition, the electroless nickel-phosphorus plating process is performed individually on the constituent members such as the outer frame 14, the partition member 30, and the cooling pipe 48, and the constituent members 14, 30, 48 after the plating process are assembled. You may do it.

(Effects of Example)
Next, the operation of the automatic ice maker according to the embodiment will be described. Since the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 formed on the outermost layer of the ice making chamber 10 is an alloy, it is not eroded at all by most organic solvents and is good for organic acids, salts and alkalis. It has the advantage of exhibiting excellent corrosion resistance and being extremely resistant to rust. Furthermore, the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 has a film thickness of 15 μm or more, so that the occurrence of pinholes reaching the substrate 16 or the base layer 24 or the adjustment layer 26 can be suppressed, and the above-described good It can fully exhibit corrosion resistance. Moreover, the concentration of the phosphorus component contained in the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is 10% to 15%, so that the corrosion resistance is excellent as compared with the case where the concentration of the phosphorus component is 10% or less. . In addition, about corrosion resistance, it confirmed by the corrosion resistance confirmation test mentioned later. The plating film applied to the outermost layer of the ice making chamber 10 generally has a film thickness of 10 μm or less. This is due to the reason that it takes time to form the coating, and the reason that the thermal conductivity is lowered and the plating coating is easily peeled off by increasing the film thickness.

  Since the ice making chamber 10 according to the embodiment has excellent corrosion resistance as described above, the conventional ice making chamber 10 described with reference to FIG. 3 installs an automatic ice making machine to produce ice. It can be carried out. In addition, the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 exhibits excellent corrosion resistance as described above, and thus is hardly corroded by a bactericide such as sodium hypochlorite or electrolytic acid water. For this reason, maintenance such as sterilization treatment using the sterilizing agent can be performed, and the ice making chamber 10 can be kept more hygienic. In addition, since the ice making chamber 10 is enhanced in corrosion resistance by the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22, the film applied to the lower layer of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 for the purpose of preventing the corrosion of the substrate 16. Can be omitted. For this reason, even if the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is directly formed on the outer surface of the substrate 16 as shown in FIG. 1A, the occurrence of corrosion can be effectively suppressed. That is, when the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 is formed in contact with the outer surface of the substrate 16, it is possible to reduce the labor required for the surface treatment of the ice making chamber 10 and to expect the effect of increasing the manufacturing efficiency. . In addition, as shown in FIG.1 (b) and FIG.1 (c), when a multilayer film is given, the certainty of corrosion prevention is improved.

[Experimental example]
A corrosion resistance confirmation test was performed on the ice making chamber 10 of the example to confirm the corrosion resistance. Further, as Comparative Examples, Comparative Example 1 in which the content concentration of the phosphorus component was 8%, Comparative Example 2 and Comparative Example 3 in which the film thickness of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 was made thinner than 15 μm, the electroless nickel-phosphorus Corrosion resistance confirmation tests were also performed on Comparative Example 4 and Comparative Example 5 in which hot-plating was performed instead of the plating film 22. In Experimental Examples 1 to 6 and Comparative Examples 1 to 3, a test was performed on a test piece provided with the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 as in the example. However, the phosphorus component-containing concentration of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 in Comparative Example 1 and the film thickness of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 in Comparative Examples 2 and 3 are different from those in the examples. Further, in Comparative Example 4 and Comparative Example 5, the test is performed on the test piece on which the molten tin plating is performed like the conventional ice making chamber 10 described in FIG. The conditions of each experimental example and comparative example are listed in Table 1. Test Example 1, Experimental Example 2, Comparative Example 1, Comparative Example 2 and Comparative Example 3 are performed with test A described later, and Experimental Example 3, Experimental Example 4 and Comparative Example 4 are described with test described later. B was performed, and Test C, which will be described later, was performed on Experimental Example 5, Experimental Example 6, and Comparative Example 5.

  In the test A, a 5% sodium chloride (NaCl) aqueous solution and a 0.5% hydrogen chloride (HCl) aqueous solution are mixed to prepare a test solution, and the test solution is sprayed on a 35 ° C. test tank and the test solution is sprayed. The specimen is exposed to the test solution for 168 hours. In the test B, the test piece was immersed in a 10 ppm sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) aqueous solution for 1500 hours. In the test C, the test piece was exposed to a hydrogen sulfide gas atmosphere of 5 ppm for 1500 hours. In the corrosion resistance confirmation test, whether or not corrosion occurred on the test piece was mainly confirmed visually. The results are shown in Table 1. In the test results shown in Table 1, when the occurrence of corrosion was confirmed, it was evaluated as “x”, and when the occurrence of corrosion was not confirmed, it was evaluated as “◯”.

  In Test A, corrosion was observed in Comparative Example 2 and Comparative Example 3 in which the film thickness of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 was 10.4 μm and 10.8 μm. In Experimental Example 1 and Experimental Example 2 in which the film thicknesses were 27.0 and 27.1, corrosion was not confirmed. This is because, in Comparative Examples 1 and 2 where the thickness of the coating is thinner than in Experimental Examples 1 and 2, the substrate 16 exposed through the pinholes of the coating was oxidized, whereas the coating was thickened. In Experimental Example 1 and Experimental Example 2, it is considered that there is no pinhole reaching the substrate 16. In Test B and Test C as well, Experimental Example 3, Experimental Example 4, Experimental Example 5 and Experimental where the thickness of electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 was 15.2 μm, 21.0 μm, 15.1 μm and 21.5 μm, respectively. In Example 6, no corrosion occurred. From this, it was confirmed that sufficient corrosion resistance can be exhibited by setting the thickness of the coating film 22 to 15 μm or more.

  In Comparative Example 1 in which the content of the phosphorus component in the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 was 8% (so-called medium phosphorus type), the film thickness was 15 μm or more, but corrosion was confirmed in the film. On the other hand, corrosion was not confirmed in Experimental Examples 1 to 6 in which the content of the phosphorus component of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 was 10% to 15% (so-called high phosphorus type). Therefore, it can be confirmed that sufficient corrosion resistance can be exhibited by setting the content of the phosphorus component of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 to 10% to 15%.

  Further, in Comparative Example 4 and Comparative Example 5 in which the thicknesses of the molten tin plating film were 21.8 μm and 21.3 μm, respectively, corrosion was confirmed on the film. On the other hand, no corrosion was observed on the coating in Experimental Examples 3 and 5 in which the thickness of the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 was 15.2 μm and 15.1 μm, respectively. From this, it can be confirmed that the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film 22 exhibits higher corrosion resistance than the molten tin plating film.

[Example of change]
The invention according to the present invention is not limited to the configuration of the embodiment, and can be modified as follows, for example.
(1) The layer configuration between the substrate and the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film is not limited to the examples. That is, an underlayer or an adjustment layer different from that in the embodiment may be provided, or another layer may be provided.
(2) The ice making section includes not only ice making rooms used for jet type automatic ice making machines, ice making plates used for flow-down type automatic ice making machines, but also, for example, auger type automatic ice making machines, with cooling pipes on the outer peripheral surface. It may be a refrigerated casing or the like that is wound and generates ice on the inner peripheral surface. Further, the configuration of the ice making chamber as the ice making unit is not limited to the embodiment. For example, a type in which a frame body in which an ice making chamber is formed is provided on the lower surface of an ice making substrate on which cooling pipes are meandered may be used. Further, the automatic ice making machine is not limited to an independent type as in the embodiment, but may be one built in a refrigerator or a freezer. That is, the automatic ice making machine according to the present invention may be provided in an ice making space defined in a freezer compartment of a home refrigerator, and in this case, the ice making part is disposed in the ice making space, An ice tray or the like that is cooled by an evaporator connected to a refrigeration system to produce ice may be used.
(3) The electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film should just be formed in the range in which at least ice is produced | generated in the outermost layer of an ice making part.

10 ice making chamber (ice making part), 16 substrate, 22 electroless nickel-phosphorus plating film,
48 Cooling pipe (evaporator)

Claims (2)

In an automatic ice making machine that circulates and supplies ice making water to an ice making part cooled by an evaporator (48) to generate ice of a required shape,
An automatic ice making machine characterized in that an electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film (22) containing 10% to 15% phosphorus component is formed on the outermost layer of the ice making part (10) with a thickness of 15 μm or more. .   The automatic ice maker according to claim 1, wherein the electroless nickel-phosphorous plating film (22) is directly formed on the outer surface of the base (16) of the ice making part (10).

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