WO2019048272A1

WO2019048272A1 - Handheld device for treating stains

Info

Publication number: WO2019048272A1
Application number: PCT/EP2018/072971
Authority: WO
Inventors: Philipp Neumaier; Christian TILL
Original assignee: BSH Hausgeräte GmbH
Priority date: 2017-09-08
Filing date: 2018-08-27
Publication date: 2019-03-14
Also published as: DE102017215843A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a handheld device for treating stains, comprising a controller (10), an acoustic head (15) which is operable with at least one changeable operating parameter (19), at least the amplitude and/or the frequency and/or the application duration being changeable as operating parameters (19), and comprising a spectroscope (8) which is embodied for spectroscopic analysis of the type of stained material (3) and/or the type of stain (2) and/or the intensity of the stain (2), wherein the controller (10) of the handheld device (1) predetermines or sets the operating parameter or parameters (19) depending on the spectroscopic analysis.

Description

Hand-held device for stain treatment

The invention is in the field of stain treatment, in particular on textile materials such as e.g. Laundry. When cleaning or washing materials such as laundry, flat linen and molded articles (e.g., garments), it may happen that not all stains can be removed from the soiled materials.

German Offenlegungsschrift DE 10 2015 006 045 A1 describes a method and a device for the after-treatment of laundry items using a sensor device and a stain removal device. The sensor device may be a camera system or a sensor strip which has one or more individual sensors. The stain remover seen downstream in the direction of conveyance of a laundry article to be treated may be constituted by a spray nozzle containing bleaching agents, detergents or solvents such as e.g. Alcohols, alkanes, acetates, enzymes, anionic and non-anionic surfactants or other compounds or mixtures targeted locally applied to the respective spot whose location coordinates have previously been determined by the sensor device. The stain remover may provide various amounts, concentrations or compositions of cleaning or treating agents. The known device is stationary and usually then arranged directly adjacent to a cleaning or washing device.

US Pat. No. 6,886,371 discloses a washing machine with an additional hand-operated cleaning device for the local treatment of particularly stubborn soiling with an ultrasound head. A cleaning agent applied to the material area to be treated locally is brought to effect particularly effectively by oscillatory movements of the ultrasound head. However, it is up to the user's experience and discretion to adjust the dosage and intensity of the ultrasonic waves on the one hand with regard to the (polluted) material to be treated and on the other hand with regard to the type of stain or the degree of staining. An overdose involves the risk of damage to the material or the tissue. US Pat. No. 6,376,444 discloses a hand-held device for stain treatment and a method practicable therewith. The handset has a reservoir with a cleaning agent disposed at one end of a handle body. The other end of the grip body has a transducer which applies sound waves to spots of a textile to be treated. Again, it is up to the experience and sensitivity of the user to choose the treatment intensity and treatment time so that on the one hand or the stains are sufficiently removed and on the other hand avoid damage to the treated textile area by the application of sound waves or the vibrations of the transducer is.

Against this background, an object of the present invention is to provide a hand-held device for stain treatment on materials, such as textiles or laundry, which is particularly effective and optimized in terms of resources (energy requirements and treatment means) and at the same time reduces the risk of damage to the treated material.

This object is achieved by a handset with the features of the independent claim. Preferred embodiments of the invention are set forth in the dependent claims or will become apparent from the following description and the figures of the accompanying drawing, wherein individual elements disclosed therein may be applied alone or in conjunction with each other.

Accordingly, a handheld device for treating stains on materials in accordance with the present invention includes a controller, a transducer, and a spectroscope. The spectroscope is designed so that it is designed for a spectroscopic determination of the type of stained material and / or the type of spot to be treated and / or the degree of contamination. For this purpose, the spectroscope is aimed at a defined distance (for example, predetermined by a spacer) or almost directly at the (carrier) material and / or the spot and performs a spectroscopic analysis (spectroscopy). Spectroscopy is understood in a known and therefore not shown here in detail as the physical method to disperse a radiation according to certain properties, in particular according to the wavelength. The intensity distribution observed here is also called the spectrum and is different substances - thus also for the composition of different spots or the type or type of the carrier material - characteristic, at least indicative.

The information supplied by the spectroscope and usually converted into electrical signals can be compared with reference information stored in the controller of the handheld device, for this purpose the controller can comprise an evaluation unit with a data memory. This can at least roughly determine the category or characteristic of the patch to be treated.

The spectrometer comprises at least one radiation source which emits radiation in a predetermined wavelength range which strikes the material or the spot to be treated. At least one radiation detector registers the radiation reflected by the material or the spot as a measurement signal (to be further processed), which is then transmitted to the controller (for example a microcomputer) and further processed therein in a manner known per se with an evaluation routine stored in the microcomputer.

Preferably, calibration spectra for different materials, treatment agents and standard or standard stains (for example blood stains, wine stains and the like) can be deposited in the evaluation unit, more preferably also materials which are exposed to different amounts of at least one treatment agent or at least one standard stain.

More preferably, the user can make a (additional) as needed calibration with known material and / or stain type and degree of contamination. The handset has a transducer for treating the patch. For the purposes of the present invention, a transducer is a component which can be set into motion at comparatively high frequency, preferably in the ultrasound frequency range, and which is vibrationally supplied by a vibration generator to the sensor in a manner known per se (see, for example, US patents 6,376,444 and 6,886,371) to be treated material and / or the stain to be removed and so causes the local cleaning or stain removal or supported.

A particular aspect of the invention is that the controller or the Operating parameters of the transducer, in particular the amplitude and / or the frequency and / or the application time of the transducer, depending on the spectroscopic analysis, ie the determination of the nature of the stained material and / or the speckle type and / or the degree of contamination pretends, so that the user accordingly performs the cleaning process. It is preferable and convenient if the controller sets the operating parameters directly. Thus, in the case of particularly sensitive staining materials such as silk, the control can minimize the mechanical stress on the material, ie, for example, operate the transducer with a higher amplitude but a shorter application duration. A preferred embodiment of the invention for handling provides that the handset has a device body, at one end of the transducer and at the other end of the spectroscope is arranged.

A particularly convenient stain treatment can be realized in that the handset has a storage and metering device for treatment agent.

The term "treating agent" is to be construed broadly and includes any preparation which is capable of inducing a treatment result on articles or materials to be treated, such as detergents or cleaning agents.

Particularly preferably, different treatment agents are stored in the hand-held device and / or supplied to the handset, so that according to an advantageous embodiment of the invention, the control depending on the spectroscopic analysis to be applied (it may be more than one component) treatment agent selects and / or dosed.

Particularly in the case of sensitive carrier materials or particularly stubborn stains, it is of particular advantage to design the invention in such a way that the spectroscope analyzes or determines the dissolving behavior of the stain to be treated and the control system applies different treatment agents depending on the dissolving behavior of the stain. For this purpose, the stain to be removed can be particularly preferably analyzed and pretreated in advance, combined with a recommendation for a further treatment (for example in a subsequent wash cycle of a subsequent washing process). ses). The hand-held device can be connected to a plurality of storage containers with different treatment agents or can have the storage containers integrally in which, for example, surfactants, enzymes or bleaches or mixtures and compositions of stain- and textile-differentiated cleaning agents and solvents are stored. The dosage can be done manually or preferably automatically, in the simplest version continuously over the application time of the transducer. With particular preference in the case of a patch consisting of complex constituents, with knowledge of the (temporal) dissolution behavior of the stain, different treatment agents (for example enzymes) can be metered and applied correspondingly with a time offset.

This is illustrated by the example of a stain of egg yolk: Here, enzymes for the particularly effective dissolution of the egg yolk and then further, with regard to the resolution of the protein components optimally acting enzymes could be supplied.

In principle, the spectroscopic analysis in the context of the invention may already be sufficient if a cursory or functional stain group is determined (for example proteins, fat, pigments) by analyzing their specific spectra and making them usable. For this purpose, their spectra can be stored in the control as reference values as described, in order to compare the spectral distributions determined by the spectroscope with these reference values and to determine therefrom the functional speckle group. It is particularly advantageous if data for the wavelength-dependent reflection behavior for standard contaminants are stored in the control device and / or an external server, which data can be used for the evaluation and material or spot assignment to at least one category. In order to perform a quantitative evaluation of a spectrum, a spectrum is generally normalized to a standard. In this way, an adjustment of a recorded spectrum with, for example, a calibration spectrum is possible; it is also possible to compare several recorded spectra with each other, for example, to track the decrease in a particular amount of a substance.

The user can also carry out a preliminary measurement or a determination of the (carrier) material. So, for example, In the case of an already older and graying white cotton carrier material, a substantially systematic displacement of the spectrum compared to the spectrum of a brand-new cotton carrier material results, which, however, can basically be filtered out as an offset.

The invention provides a handheld device for targeted stain treatment with optimized use of mechanics, treatment time and treatment agents depending on the type of textile and stains to be treated. The spot-specific application of the energy consumption of the transducer is minimized, resulting in a battery-powered handset to a desirable for the user longer battery life.

The invention will be explained in more detail below with reference to exemplary embodiments illustrated in the attached drawing. Show it:

FIG. 1 shows schematically an embodiment of a hand-held device,

FIG. 2 shows an embodiment variant of the hand-held device from FIG. 1,

Figure 3 shows the treatment of a patch with the handset of Figure 1, Figure 4 reference spectra stain-causing media and

FIG. 5 is a three-dimensional representation of spectral distributions of stain-forming media.

FIG. 1 shows a hand-held device 1 for treating a spot 2 which is located on a carrier material, for example a laundry item 3. The handset 1 has a device body 4, in whose one end region 6 a spectroscope 8 is arranged. The spectroscope 8 comprises a radiation source 8a, not shown in further detail, and a detector 8b, not shown in detail, which spectrally analyzes the reflected radiation 9 emanating from the spot 2 with respect to the respective wavelengths. The detector generates due to the incident radiation 9 for further processing in a controller 10 of the handset 1 suitable electrical, symbolized by an arrow output signals 1 1, representing, for example, in digital form the recorded spectrum of the spot 2. In the orientation of the hand-held device 1 shown in FIG. 1, viewed in the direction of the longitudinal axis, at the other end region 12 is a transducer 15 which, in a manner known per se, has an element 18 which can be excited to vibrate by a vibration generator 17 at the tip 16. The oscillation frequency, which is preferably in the ultrasound range, but can also be in the audible sound range, the oscillation amplitude and / or the operating time (application time) are symbolized by arrows, variable operating parameters 19. The controller 10 may - as illustrated in this embodiment - the generator 17th apply directly to these operating parameters. The operating parameters may additionally or alternatively be displayed to the user on a display 20 so that the latter can execute the spot treatment in accordance with the displayed indications.

Figure 2 shows an embodiment of the handset 1, in which a conveying and metering device 21 (hereinafter referred to as metering device) is provided, which contained in a preferably replaceable cartridge 22 treatment agent 23 via a line 24 in the region of the tip 16 and thus of the (only shown in Figure 1) vibrating element 18 of the transducer promotes. The cartridge 22 may preferably be inserted into a receptacle 28 which can be closed by a cover 26. Preferably, a plurality of cartridges of the same kind are introduced into a corresponding number of receptacles, wherein the metering device 21 is in selective flow communication with the respective cartridges, as indicated by a plurality of supply lines 29. Thereby, the metering device 21 - controlled by the controller 10 - as needed different, contained in the individual cartridges treatment means 23 - e.g. Solvents, enzymes or bleach - for each required treatment of the spot 2 (Figure 1) select and apply.

In Figure 3, only the end portion 12 of the handset is shown to further illustrate the treatment of the spot 2; the handset 1 is thus rotated 180 degrees with respect to the situation illustrated in FIG. Drops 34 of a treatment agent 36 which, as described in connection with FIG. 2, are selected from a corresponding cartridge and conveyed through the metering device via the line 24 into the end region 12 to the oscillating element 18 are applied there to the spot 2 and subsequently or simultaneously through the transducer 15 by means of sound wave energy mechanically brought into effect with the spot 2.

In this case, the controller 10 selects the most suitable treatment agent 23 as a function of output signals 1 1 supplied by the spectroscope 8 (information about the type and optionally the intensity level of the spot 2 or of the carrier material (item 3)) and accordingly controls the metering device 21 with regard to metering , Delivery time and delivery time. This control data is thereby provided or selected (for example, from a reference database stored in the controller 10) by taking appropriate spectral analyzes of typical staining media in advance, such that by comparing the spectrum of the stain 2, that stain is associated with at least one stain class or speckle type can be. Additionally or alternatively, information about the carrier material (laundry item 3) representing output signals 1 1 can be supplied by the spectroscope by a spectral analysis of the laundry 3 takes place and the spectral values obtained are compared with stored in the controller 10 reference values of typical carrier materials.

For particularly stubborn or complex stains, the stain resolution characteristic or the dissolving behavior of the stain can be determined with the aid of the spectroscope 8 and, if necessary, also stored. For this purpose, for example, the referencing of the stain can serve (for example, as an egg yolk and protein existing stain). The dissolution behavior of the spot to be treated can also be achieved by multiple spectroscopic analyzes during the cleaning or treatment process. For this purpose, a design of the hand-held device is conceivable in that both the transducer and the spectroscope are arranged so that they can simultaneously treat the spot or investigate it spectroscopically. In this case, the controller 10 different treatment agents - for example, a first enzyme from a first cartridge 22 (Figure 2), which is optimized in terms of the solution of egg yolk, and then another enzyme from another cartridge 22, which is optimized in terms of the solution of protein - Apply depending on the dissolving behavior.

In the manner described above, the user can preferably determine in advance the material or at least the material class of the unsupported carrier material by spectroscopically measuring a normal, that is to say imperfect, region of the material to analyze the handset. In this case, the handset compares the recorded spectrum of the material as described above in connection with the spot 2 with previously recorded or stored in a database and possibly retrievable reference spectra. To further illustrate the described referencing of typical stain-forming substances, the characteristic spectral courses of blood, cocoa, red wine, soot and sebum are shown schematically in FIG. 4 by way of example. In the diagram, the so-called extinction (according to the absorption) in so-called standard norm variant (SNV) is plotted against the wavelength. The standard standard variant is a standardization method for taking into account the measuring distance of the spectrometer; the curves would shift vertically depending on the measuring distance with essentially unchanged characteristic curve course. In the present example the reference spectrum was 100% of clean cotton material (eg a T-shirt) based on reflected radiation ("referenced on clean cotton"). The curves were also filtered or smoothed with a suitable algorithm or filter - here the so-called Savitzky-Golay filter 3-1 1). In this case, 3-1 1 means the use of a 3rd order polynomial with a sliding window that uses 5 measuring points before and 5 measuring points after the value considered for smoothing. Absorption values above "0" indicate a particularly strong attenuation of the reflected light in the respective wavelength, for blood one recognizes, for example, a wave peak (maximum) of the individual measurement curves at approximately 1730 nm wavelength, while a wave trough (minimum) - ie, relatively strong reflection - In the case of light with a wavelength of 1650 nm, one obtains with this reference spectrum a kind of "fingerprint" for blood and in the same way - with other striking maxima or minima spectra for the other stain - forming substances. Due to the characteristic courses, the controller assigns the specific spot currently to be treated to a spot type or spot class and accordingly sets the use of the treatment agent used or the type and duration of the operating parameters of the transducer, as described above. The required control variables can be determined beforehand by appropriate tests with the respective types of stains.

In a corresponding manner, reference spectra (not shown here) for ger) materials such as silk, cotton, etc. recorded and stored, so that the user receives a classification of the carrier material to a class of material by spectroscopic examination and thus the intensity, duration, etc. of the oscillating head application and treatment is determined. FIG. 5 shows, in a three-dimensional representation, the relevant reference values for the spectra of typical staining materials already described in FIG. 4, namely blood, cocoa, red wine, soot and sebum, according to so-called multi-variant analysis. These can be stored in the evaluation unit of the handheld device, but also externally in a storage connected via WLAN, for example, or a cloud.

FIG. 5 shows a 3-principal component analysis which already has stain-characteristic distributions of the three components PC (principal components), namely PC-1, PC-2 and PC 3, for most common stain-forming substances. The percentages of the principal components (eg PC-1 (45%)) mean the variation of the spectrum and thus the weighting. For example, a cocoa stain essentially has the coefficients (components) [+4 ^* PC-1; -4 ^* PC-2; 0 ^* PC-3].

Already in the illustrated three dimensions, the patches consisting of different substances differ significantly, the values of which virtually define a spatial area (accumulation space of the individual recorded reference values). If the spectrum (after appropriate evaluation) of a spot or carrier material currently being analyzed by the hand-held instrument falls into one of the spatial regions, it is basically possible to reliably determine into which spot category or material category the analyzed substance falls and accordingly control the oscillating head. However, it can also be seen in FIG. 5 that the spatial ranges of the reference values for sebum and soot are relatively close to each other, so that an even more accurate analysis is preferably carried out here (for example using multivariate analyzes of a higher order or dimension) and / or a rough preselection by the user in the control of the handset is entered. reference numeral

1 handset

2 stain

3 pieces of laundry

4 device body

6 end area

8 spectroscope

8a radiation source

8b detector

9 radiation

10 control

1 1 output signals

12 end area

15 transducer

16 tip

17 generator

18 element

19 operating parameters

20 display

21 conveying / metering device

22 cartridge

23 treatment agents

24 line

24 display

26 lids

28 recording

30 supply line

34 drops

36 treatment agents

PC-1 component (Principal Component)

PC-2 component (Principal Component)

PC-3 component (Principal Component)

Claims

claims

1 . Hand-held device for stain treatment

a controller (10),

a transducer (15) which can be operated with at least one variable operating parameter (19), wherein at least the amplitude and / or the frequency and / or the application duration can be changed as the operating parameter (19), and

a spectroscope (8) designed for a spectroscopic analysis of the nature of the stained material (3) and / or the nature and spot (2) and / or the intensity of the stain (2),

- Wherein the controller (10) of the handset (1) presets or sets the operating parameters (19) in dependence on the spectroscopic analysis.

2. Hand device according to claim 1,

- The handset (1) has a device body (4), at one end region (12) of the transducer (15) and at the other end region (6), the spectroscope (8) are arranged.

3. Hand tool according to claim 1 or 2,

- Wherein the handset (1) has a storage and metering device (21) for treatment agent (23).

4. Hand device according to claim 3,

- The controller (10) depending on the spectroscopic analysis to be applied treatment agent (23) selects and / or metered.

5. Hand device according to at least one of the preceding claims,

wherein the spectroscope (8) determines the dissolution behavior of the spot to be treated (2) and

the controller (10) applied a plurality of different treatment agents (23) as a function of the dissolving behavior of the spot (2).