WO2011089523A2

WO2011089523A2 - Automated sanitization system for scrubbing machines

Info

Publication number: WO2011089523A2
Application number: PCT/IB2011/000104
Authority: WO
Inventors: Eugenio Cagna
Original assignee: Ghibli S.P.A.
Priority date: 2010-01-22
Filing date: 2011-01-20
Publication date: 2011-07-28
Also published as: ITMI20100082A1; IT1397746B1; EP2525697A2; WO2011089523A3

Abstract

Automated system (20) suitable for sanitization of scrubbing machines (10) comprising one or more nozzles (25) supported at cover (13) of solution and recovery tanks (11, 12) of said scrubbing machines (10) and fed with a sanitization substance, contained in a dedicated tank (21), by a pump (23a) for nebulization of said sanitization substance directed towards the inner surface of said tanks (11, 12).

Description

AUTOMATED SANITIZATION SYSTEM FOR SCRUBBING MACHINES

The present invention relates to an automated sanitization system for scrubbing machines, and more particularly to an automated system for sanitization of the dirty water tank within said machines.

Scrubbing machines, providing either an off board or on board operator, are used for cleaning floors having a noticeable extent that are floors of industrial plants, warehouses, supermarket, or even areas of public buildings. In all of these cases the need of a scrubbing machine mainly arises due to opportunity to quickly and almost automatically perform, besides with the related efficiency, several cleaning cycles in these floor areas. Moreover, such machines allow, during each cleaning cycle, both washing and instandy subsequent drying of the floor thus not causing holdups in areas often crossed by an high people flow. The scrubbing machines currently adopted for such purposes, owing to obvious technical differences being among different models available on the market, have a structure rather common which provides, on board, a pair of separated tanks fitted for storage of fluids necessary during each cleaning cycle. A first tank, namely the solution tank, contains clean water mixed with a particular detergent and a second tank, namely the recovery tank, contains water sucked by the machine during floor drying operation, that is the dirty water. Therefore, every time the maximum capacity of the recovery tank is reached, it needs to stop floor cleaning in order to empty the same tank, and obviously fill the solution tank in case it has run out of its content. Thus it is possible to continue the floor cleaning.

It is to be envisioned that between a cleaning cycle and the subsequent one it is provided that personnel with some regularity wash the recovery tank since, probably, once dirty water has been discharged, it can still have not discharged dirty residues. It is now necessary to consider that such scrubbing machine, besides the above mentioned areas such as plants, warehouses, and in general public areas, are also used in buildings like hospitals, laboratories, food industries, and the like. In the latter kind of environments or buildings the highest cleaning degree is obviously required which can also be the full sanitization, such as in case of operating theatre of hospitals, the sanitization having to be performed according predefined procedures provided also by regulations. In order to comply to the regulations it is now common to use for each operating theatre a dedicated machine which therefore is always restricted within the same operating theatre and its entry and exit corridors. Moreover, a normal cleaning of the recovery tank with water is no more adequate for assuring removal of blood traces or other body fluids and it will expose the machine to bacteria growing from these traces having generally a biologic nature. Regulations, whereas on the one hand require use a particular sanitization substances, on the other hand allow the sanitization operation of the recovery tank to be performed manually by the operator, thus not avoiding the possibility of incorrect sanitization due to a any error or oversight of the operator.

Main object of the present invention is therefore to provide an automated sanitization system for scrubbing machine, and in particular an automated sanitization system of the recovery tank of a scrubbing machine.

Further object of the present invention is to provide a scrubbing machine having an onboard automated sanitization system of the recovery tank.

These and other features of the automated sanitization system of the recovery tank within a scrubbing machine will be clear by reading the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment according to the present invention taken with reference to the annexed drawings in which:

fig. 1 is a perspective view of a scrubbing machine provided with the automated sanitization system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention; fig. 2 is a perspective view of the machine in fig. 1 shown with the tank cover raised;

fig. 3 is an enlarged perspective view of a first detail of fig. 2;

fig. 4 is an enlarged perspective view of a second detail of fig. 2;

fig. 5A is an operational diagram of a preferred embodiment according to the present invention; and

fig. 5B is an operational diagram of an alternative embodiment according to the present invention.

With reference now to figs. 1 and 2, a scrubbing machine 10 is provided with an automated sanitization system 20. Said machine 10 includes a pair of tanks, that are a solution tank 11 and a recovery tank 12, being internally separated from each other. A cover 13 is designed and dimensioned for sealing in the upper portion said pair of tanks 11 and 12 and has an inner face 13a and an outer face 13b on which a passage 14 is formed. Said automated system 20, instead, comprises a tank 21 containing the sanitization substance, connected by a suction duct 22 to a hydraulic control unit 23, the aforementioned parts of the system 20 being arranged outside the machine 10. Said hydraulic control unit 23 is, in turn, connected by a supply duct 24 passing through said passage 4 on the outer face 13a to a plurality of nozzles 25 delivering the sanitization substance (see fig. 2) placed on the inner face 13b of the cover 13 so as to direct their flow towards the inner walls of said tanks 11 and 12. Said hydraulic control unit 23 is internally constituted, for the particular embodiment described, mainly by a pump 23a driven by a timer device 23b (not shown), controlled by the operator through a button 23c placed on the outer face of said control unit 23 and back-lighted in order to show the operating status, that is the on or off mode, of the timer device 23b.

Turning now to figs. 3 and 4, there are shown some details regarding structure of the automated sanitization system 10 and, particularly, arrangement of nozzles 25 on the cover inner face 13a (fig. 3) and ways to mount assembly constituted by hydraulic control unit 23 and sanitization substance tank 21 (fig. 4). In fig. 3, said delivering nozzles 25 can be clearly seen fed, by a pump 23a, with sanitization fluid at a given pressure: arrangement, numbers and direction of each nozzle 25 are parameters chosen during design of sanitization system 10 depending on the particular scrubbing machine 10 in which such system 10 is installed. Indeed, in order to successfully perform the sanitization process, the sanitization substance must reach every portion of the inner walls of solution and recovery tanks 11 and 12, respectively. Moreover, yet during design step of the sanitization system 10, pressure values for sanitization fluid supply and feeding time duration must be selected accurately. Very often tanks of said scrubbing machines are made of moulded plastic materials which, therefore, have a not negligible surface roughness for such applications. Traces of blood or other body fluids can have size comparable to microscopic roughness of said plastic surfaces thus acquiring that sanitization fluid penetrates also within such roughness. This object is achieved by the sanitization system 10 by adopting a delivering pressure value of the pump 23a (variable pressure pump up to a maximum value of about 10 bar), and therefore of the delivering nozzles 25, which allows for nebulization of the sanitization fluid, at oudet opening of each nozzle 25, in order to obtain drops of sanitization fluid small enough to penetrate such microscopic roughness of the surfaces of the tanks 11 and 12. In the same way delivering time duration must be suitably selected in order to grant delivering of the needed amount of sanitization fluid for particular size of the surfaces of the tanks 11 and 12: generally such delivering duration ranges between 1 sec and about 20 sec, but different duration values may be considered. In fig. 4 there are shown a plate 26 on which said hydraulic control unit 23 and a pair of supports 27 are mounted, each support 27 being fixed, at first end thereof, to said plate 26 and, at second C-shaped end, hooked on the edge of one or more tanks of said scrubbing machine 10.

In an alternative embodiment according to the present invention, the sanitization system 20 is built-in within a scrubbing machine 10 by housing said hydraulic control unit 23 and said sanitization substance tank 21 within body of the same machine 10, further arranging also ducts for suction and delivering of the pump 23a within the body of the machine 10 or providing passages into the machine for said ducts, so as to comply with operational diagram of a plant as shown in fig. 5A.

In yet another embodiment according to the present invention, the sanitization system 20 can provide, in place of the plurality of delivering nozzles 25 securely arranged on the inner surface of the tanks cover of the machine 10, a rotating head (fig. 5B) supporting only one delivering nozzle 25: such arrangement is particularly advantageous in case of a compact scrubbing machine which, as a consequence, either has tank too much small to permit installation of multiple nozzles 25 or, anyway, has a nozzle height, in respect of the tank bottom, too much reduced to permit the fluid cone vaporized by the nozzle to cover the whole inner surface of the tanks. The rotating head, instead, allows for using only one nozzle 25 and sequentially directing sanitization fluid cone towards each portion of the inner surface till the sanitization has been performed on the whole surface.

Another embodiment according to the present invention provides installation of the hydraulic control unit 23 and the tank 21 on the wall, still connected by duct 22, the duct 24 being from time to time connectable, possibly through said passage 14, to the plurality of delivering nozzles 25 provided in one or more machines. The latter embodiment therefore allows use of only one automated sanitization system 20 with a set of machines 10 provided with said plurality of delivering nozzles 25.

Further changes or variations can be applied to the automated sanitization system 10 without falling out the claimed scope of the present invention. Such changes can involve, for example, adoption of a fully controlled pump 23a using one or more sensors for detecting the discharge status of one or more tanks and the corresponding automatic start of the sanitization process within the machine 10. Other sensors can be adopted in order to detect the sanitization liquid level within the tank 21 and therefore inform operator, for example by lighting or acoustic signals, in case it would be under the required level. Moreover, control of the hydraulic unit can be connected, for example by suitable and known wireless modules, with an outer management system able to monitor and/or modify some operating parameters of the sanitization system 10.

Claims

1. An automated sanitization system (20) particularly suitable for a scrubbing machine (10) comprising:

(i) a hydraulic power unit (23),

(ii) a sanitization substance storage tank (21) connected with said hydraulic power unit (23) by a duct (22),

(iii) a plurality of nozzles (25) dispensing said sanitization substance, said plurality being able to be in fluid communication with said hydraulic power unit (23), by at least one duct (24).

2. The automated system (20) according to claim 1, wherein said hydraulic power unit (23) comprises:

(i) a pump (23a) having a suction inlet connected with said duct (22) and a discharge oudet connected with said duct (24),

(ii) a control device (23b) for said pump (23a), said device (23b) being operable by

(iii) a switch (23c).

3. The automated system (20) according to claim 2, wherein said pump (23a) is an adjustable pressure pump, adapted to nebulize the sanitization substance.

4. The automated system (20) according to claim 2, wherein said control device (23b) is a timer.

5. The automated system (20) according to claim 1 , wherein said plurality of nozzles (25) is arranged inside one or more tanks (11, 2) of said scrubbing machine (10), each of said plurality of nozzles (25) striking with its own jet a portion of inner surface of said one or more tanks (11, 12), the jets of said plurality as a whole reaching all said inner surface.

6. The automated system (20) according to claim 5, wherein said plurality of nozzles (25) is arranged on an inner face (13a) of a cover (13) of said one or more tanks (11, 12) of said scrubbing machine (10).

7. The automated system (20) according to claim 5, wherein said plurality of nozzles (25) is replaced by a single nozzle fixed to a rotatable head supported on an inner face (13a) of a cover (13) of said one or more tanks (!l, 12) of said scrubbing machine (10).

8. A scrubbing machine (10) comprising the automated system (20) according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized by the fact that said automated system (20) is embedded within a main body of said scrubbing machine (10).

9. A scrubbing machine (10) comprising the automated system (20) according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized by the fact that said hydraulic power unit (23) and said tank (21) of said automated system (20) are hooked to the main body of said scrubbing machine (10) by a support (26; 27).