JPH07313856A - Appratus for producing carbonated spring water - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To produce carbonated spring water with a compact structure by fixing both ends of a hollow fiber membrane bundle with a resin and providing one end communicating with the hollow parts of the hollow fiber membranes with a hot water introducing port and the other end with a hot water outlet and providing the outside part of the hollow fiber membranes with a carbon dioxide introducing port in communication therewith. CONSTITUTION:The composite hollow fiber membranes 31, etc., having a three- layered structure obtd. by holding both sides of thin-film-like nonporous layers having excellent gas permeability with porous layers are preferably used. Both ends of such hollow fiber membranes 31 are fixed with the resin to form the bundle. The hot water introducing port 32 is made to communicate with one end of the hollow parts of the hollow fiber membranes 31 and the hot water outlet 37 with the other end. The carbon dioxide introducing pipe 33 is made to communicate with the outside part of the hollow fiber membranes 31. The hot water is then uniformly distributed to the respective hollow fiber membranes 31 through the hot water introducing port 32 and, therefore, the efficiency of dissolving the carbon dioxide is enhanced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a novel carbonated spring production apparatus capable of easily obtaining a physiologically effective carbonated spring (= carbon dioxide gas-dissolved water).

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Carbonated springs have been used for a long time in bathhouses and the like because they have an excellent heat retaining effect.
It is considered that the heat retaining effect of the carbonated spring is basically because the body environment is improved by the peripheral vasodilatory effect of the contained carbon dioxide gas. In addition, percutaneous infiltration of carbon dioxide causes an increase and dilation of the capillary bed, improving blood circulation in the skin.

Therefore, it is said to be effective for treating degenerative lesions and peripheral circulatory disorders. Since carbonated springs have such excellent effects, attempts have been made to artificially mix them. For example, carbonated hot water has been obtained by feeding carbon dioxide gas in the form of bubbles into a bath, a chemical method of acting a carbonate and an acid, and a method of pressurizing hot water and carbon dioxide gas in a tank under pressure for a certain period of time. In addition, JP-A-2-27915
No. 8 publication supplies carbon dioxide gas through a hollow fiber semipermeable membrane,
A method of absorbing it in water has been proposed.

[0004]

However, in the conventional method for producing hot carbonic acid water, for example, a chemical method, a large amount of chemicals must be added to bring the concentration of carbon dioxide gas to 300 ppm, and the inside of the bathtub must be charged. In the method in which carbon dioxide gas is sent in the form of bubbles, the dissolution rate of carbon dioxide gas in warm water is only about 10%, and most of the carbon dioxide gas is scattered.

In the method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-279158, the dissolution efficiency is higher than that of the chemical method or the method of feeding in the form of bubbles, but it is not sufficient. Specifically, in the method disclosed in the examples of the publication, 1
It is stated that it takes 10 minutes to make 600 liters of hot water of 200 liters and 30 minutes to make 1000 ppm at a carbon dioxide flow rate of 0 liters / min, and the dissolution efficiency in this experiment is 35% to 60%. Only.

The dissolution efficiency in this case is a value indicating what percentage of the carbon dioxide gas used has been dissolved. If the dissolution efficiency is low, not only carbon dioxide gas is wasted, but there is a risk that carbon dioxide gas released into the air will accumulate at a specific place and cause respiratory distress. The reason why the embodiment has such an insufficient value is that the structure of the disperser is inappropriate.

According to FIG. 2 of the publication, carbon dioxide gas is flown inside the hollow fiber and water is flown outside. in this way,
The flow of water causes uneven flow, and the dissolution efficiency of carbon dioxide gas decreases. Another reason is that the membrane of the reference is a semipermeable membrane, that is, since it is a porous membrane, it becomes bubbles and carbon dioxide gas passes through the membrane, and the bubbles are not completely dissolved in water. It is estimated that the gas will escape. An object of the present invention is to efficiently dissolve carbon dioxide in warm water.

[0008]

Such objects are achieved by the following inventions. (1) In a device comprising a dissolver for dissolving carbon dioxide in warm water, a gas cylinder for supplying carbon dioxide, a pressure reducing valve for maintaining a constant carbon dioxide pressure, and an opening / closing valve, the dissolver is a resin on both ends of the hollow fiber membrane bundle. The hot water inlet is provided at one end communicating with the hollow portion of the hollow fiber membrane, the hot water outlet is provided at the other end, and the carbon dioxide gas inlet is provided at a position communicating with the outer portion of the hollow fiber membrane. Carbonated spring manufacturing equipment.

(2) The manufacturing apparatus according to (1) 1, wherein the dissolver has a drain outlet at a position communicating with the outer portion of the hollow fiber membrane.

(3) The manufacturing apparatus according to (1) above, wherein the on-off valve has a function of detecting the flow of hot water and opening it.

(4) The above-mentioned (1), wherein the dissolver is provided with a filter immediately before the hot water introduction side resin fixing surface.
The manufacturing apparatus described.

(5) The hollow fiber membrane is a composite hollow fiber membrane having a three-layer structure in which both sides of a thin film-like non-porous layer having excellent gas permeability are sandwiched between porous layers. )
The manufacturing apparatus described.

The present invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an example of the device of the present invention. 1 is a casing, 2 is a hot water inlet pipe, 3 is a dissolver, 4 is a carbon dioxide gas inlet pipe, 5 is a carbon dioxide gas cylinder, 6 is a sensor, 7 is a carbon dioxide control valve, 8 is an output signal, and 9 is a hot water outlet pipe. is there.

Hot water is produced by a heat exchanger or the like, guided to the dissolver, and supplied to the bath through the inside of the hollow fiber membrane.
At that time, carbon dioxide gas permeates the hollow fiber membrane from the outside of the hollow fiber membrane and is dissolved in the warm water flowing through the membrane. In addition, the flow rate of carbon dioxide is controlled by detecting the flow rate of hot water with a sensor and opening and closing the control valve.

FIG. 2 is a structural diagram of the dissolver. 31 is a hollow fiber membrane, 32 is a hot water inlet, 33 is a carbon dioxide gas inlet pipe,
34 is a filter, 35 is a potting part, 36 is a drain, and 37 is a hot water outlet. The hot water is evenly distributed to each hollow fiber membrane through the hot water inlet of the dissolver.

Therefore, the flow rate of the hot water is uniform inside each hollow fiber membrane, and is not biased to one side as in the embodiment of the above-mentioned JP-A-2-279158, and the dissolution efficiency is a high value.

The device of the present invention has a drain outlet at a position communicating with the outer portion of the hollow fiber membrane, and a mechanism capable of discharging water accumulated outside the hollow fiber membrane to the outside through the drain outlet as needed. Have. Further, a filter is provided immediately before the resin fixing surface on the hot water introduction side to prevent dust and the like mixed in the warm water from being blocked and closing the membrane end surface.

For the filter, a metal wire mesh, a sintered material or a non-woven fabric made of plastic or a porous material can be used. The finer the hole diameter, the better, but if it is too small, the resistance will increase. Specifically, the pore diameter is from several 10 μm to several 100
It is preferably in the range of μm.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a hollow fiber membrane, where A is a homogeneous layer,
B is a porous layer. The inner diameter of the hollow fiber membrane is preferably 50 μm or more and 1000 μm or less. If it is 50 μm or less, the resistance of hot water flowing in the hollow fiber membrane is large and a sufficient amount of water cannot be obtained, and if it is 1000 μm or more, the size of the dissolver becomes large and it cannot be made compact.

The hollow fiber membrane is preferably a composite hollow fiber membrane having a three-layer structure in which both sides of a thin film-like non-porous layer having excellent gas permeability are sandwiched by porous layers. For example, Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd.
An example is a three-layer composite hollow fiber membrane (MHF).

The non-porous gas permeable membrane is a membrane through which gas permeates by a dissolution / diffusion mechanism, and can be any as long as it does not substantially include pores through which gas can permeate in a gaseous state such as Knudsen flow. Anything is fine.

By using a non-porous gas permeable membrane,
The gas can be supplied and dissolved at a desired pressure without being released as bubbles, and the gas can be efficiently dissolved, and can be easily dissolved at a desired concentration with good controllability. In addition, water or an aqueous solution does not flow back to the gas supply side through the membrane.

Preferred examples of the film material include silicone-based, polyolefin-based, polyester-based, polyamide-based, polyimide-based, polysulfone-based, cellulose-based and polyurethane-based materials.

[0024]

The present invention will be described in detail with reference to the following examples. The carbon dioxide concentration was measured with an ion meter IM40S carbon dioxide electrode CE-235 manufactured by Toa Denpa Kogyo Co., Ltd.

Example 1 A carbonated spring was produced with the apparatus shown in FIG. The dissolver 3 is shown in FIG.
A carbon dioxide gas dissolving module having the above structure and having a membrane area of 1.8 m ² was prepared. The hollow fiber membrane used had a three-layer structure with an inner diameter of 200 μm and the inner and outer layers each had a thickness of 20.
μm polyethylene porous membrane, intermediate layer has a thickness of 0.5μ
m is a non-porous membrane segmented polyurethane membrane of m.

The filter used was a 100-mesh non-woven fabric. Warm water at 40 ° C. was supplied to the dissolver 3 at 15 liters / min. At the same time, when the carbon dioxide gas whose carbon dioxide pressure was adjusted by adjusting the flow rate of the carbon dioxide gas from the carbon dioxide cylinder was measured at different flow rates, the results shown in Table 1 were obtained.

[0027]

[Table 1]

Comparative Example 1 The dissolver shown in FIG. 2 was improved so that hot water was introduced into the carbon dioxide gas introducing pipe 33.
And drained from the drain outlet 36. On the other hand, carbon dioxide gas is supplied from the hot water inlet 32, and the hot water outlet 37
Closed. By doing so, carbon dioxide gas is supplied to the inside of the hollow fiber membrane, and hot water is supplied to the outside of the hollow fiber membrane.

To this dissolver, warm water of 40 ° C. was added at 15 liter / mi.
Supplied with n. At the same time, the carbon dioxide gas was supplied from the carbon dioxide gas cylinder at a flow rate of 4 liters / min by adjusting the carbon dioxide pressure. When the concentration of carbon dioxide in warm water flowing out from the dissolver was measured, it was 320 ppm, and the dissolution efficiency was only 61%, which was a low value.

[0030]

According to the apparatus for producing carbonated spring of the present invention, a high concentration carbonated spring can be obtained by efficiently dissolving carbon dioxide gas in water by a simple and compact method.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic overall configuration diagram of an apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view of a module suitable for applying to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an example of a hollow fiber membrane suitable for application to the present invention.

[Explanation of sign]

 1 Casing 2 Hot Water Introducing Pipe 3 Dissolver 4 Carbon Dioxide Introducing Pipe 5 Carbon Dioxide Cylinder 6 Sensor 7 Carbon Dioxide Control Valve 8 Output Signal 9 Hot Water Outlet Pipe 31 Hollow Fiber Membrane 32 Hot Water Introducing Port 33 Carbon Dioxide Introducing Pipe 34 Filter 35 Potting part 36 Drain drain 37 Hot water outlet A A homogeneous layer B Porous layer

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A device comprising a dissolver for dissolving carbon dioxide in warm water, a gas cylinder for supplying carbon dioxide, a pressure reducing valve for keeping the carbon dioxide pressure constant and an opening / closing valve, wherein the dissolver is at both ends of the hollow fiber membrane bundle. Is fixed with a resin, a hot water inlet is provided at one end communicating with the hollow portion of the hollow fiber membrane, a hot water outlet is provided at the other end, and a carbon dioxide gas inlet is provided at a position communicating with the outer portion of the hollow fiber membrane. Carbon dioxide spring manufacturing equipment. 2. The manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dissolver has a drain outlet at a position communicating with the outer side of the hollow fiber membrane. 3. The manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the opening / closing valve has a function of detecting a flow of hot water and opening it. 4. The manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dissolver is provided with a filter immediately before the hot water introduction side resin fixing surface. 5. The hollow fiber membrane is a composite hollow fiber membrane having a three-layer structure in which both sides of a thin film-like non-porous layer having excellent gas permeability are sandwiched by porous layers. Manufacturing equipment.