Reaction device for comprehensive determination of biodegradability of materials and its method of use

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12428618-B2
Application number	US-202117317243-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 11, 2021
Priority date	May 7, 2021
Publication date	Sep 30, 2025
Grant date	Sep 30, 2025

Abstract

Provided is a reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material, comprising a device frame, an electrical control cabinet and a reaction chamber monomer. The upper side of the reaction chamber monomer is a reaction chamber body, and the lower part is a material receiving trolley. The top of the reaction chamber body is sealed by a chamber cover. A side wall is pasted with an electric heating plate and a thermal insulation cotton. A stirring paddle is arranged inside. An air inlet and an air outlet are respectively provided on a front and a rear wall. A discharging mechanism is located below. The electrical control cabinet separately controls the reaction conditions of each reaction chamber monomer. The present invention further relates to a use method thereof, which can realize the biodegradability evaluation in such three aspects as material degradation rate, disintegration rate and ecological non-toxicity test.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material, wherein it comprises:
a device frame;
an electrical control cabinet, which is arranged on the device frame, wherein a control panel is installed on a surface of the electrical control cabinet, and a programmable logic controller is provided inside the control panel;
a plurality of reaction chamber monomers arranged on the device frame, wherein each of the reaction chamber monomers is respectively connected to the electrical control cabinet, and the reaction chamber monomers are independent of each other and are respectively controlled by the electrical control cabinet, wherein the reaction chamber monomer comprises:
a reaction chamber body, which is arranged on an upper side of an inside of the reaction chamber monomer, wherein the top of the reaction chamber body is sealed by a chamber cover, materials required for measurement can be put into the reaction chamber body after the chamber cover is opened, an electric heating plate and a thermal insulation cotton are attached to a side wall of the reaction chamber body, the electric heating plate is controlled by the electrical control cabinet to adjust the temperature in the reaction chamber body; and the bottom of the reaction chamber body is provided with a discharge port for discharging the materials from the chamber;
a stirring paddle, which is arranged inside the reaction chamber body, wherein a rear end of the stirring paddle is connected to a motor installed on a rear side of the reaction chamber body, and the electrical control cabinet controls the operation of the motor to drive the stirring paddle to turn over the materials in the reaction chamber body;
an air inlet, which is arranged on a front side wall of the reaction chamber main body, wherein the air inlet is connected to the inside of the reaction chamber body for adjusting an air intake time inside the reaction chamber body according to a control signal output by the electrical control cabinet;
an air outlet, which is arranged on the rear side of the reaction chamber body, wherein one end of the air outlet is connected to the inside of the reaction chamber body, and the other end of the air outlet is dried by a color-changing silica gel and is then connected to a carbon dioxide detector;
a discharging mechanism, comprising a leachate collection box arranged below the reaction chamber body, wherein when the leachate collection box abuts against the discharge port at the bottom of the reaction chamber body, the leachate collection box is used for receiving the leachate produced during fermentation process in the chamber; and when the leachate collection box is separated from the discharge port at the bottom of the reaction chamber body, and the leachate collection box is used for discharging the fermentation material in the chamber;
a material receiving trolley, which is arranged on a lower side of the inside of the reaction chamber monomer and located below the leachate collection box, wherein the top of the material receiving trolley is of an open structure for receiving the fermentation material discharged through the discharge port at a bottom of the reaction chamber body:
wherein the bottom of the device frame is further provided with a weight sensor at a position corresponding to each reaction chamber monomer:
an outside of the reaction chamber monomer is further provided with a support frame, comprising:
a side vertical plate, which is arranged on both sides of the support frame and is connected and fixed to the side wall of the reaction chamber body:
a support base plate, which is connected to a bottom of the support frame, wherein the support base plate is further provided with a sliding rail extending from back to front, the material receiving trolley moves back and forth along the sliding rail for receiving the fermentation material that falls from the reaction chamber body:
and after the reaction chamber monomer is installed on the device frame, the support base plate of the reaction chamber monomer is located above the weight sensor to trigger the weight sensor to collect the weight of materials in the reaction chamber monomer.

2. The reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material according to claim 1 ,
wherein the chamber cover is made of a reduced resin material, and a sealing strip is provided on a lower edge of the chamber cover;
a buckle is further provided between the chamber cover and the reaction chamber body, when the buckle is locked, the chamber cover and the top of the reaction chamber body are sealed and connected through the sealing strip.

3. The reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material according to claim 1 , wherein a handle is further provided on the top of the chamber cover, the side of the chamber cover is further connected with an air spring, a lower end of the air spring is connected with a cylinder hinge seat arranged on an outside of the side vertical plate, the chamber cover is driven by the air spring rotate upward to open or to rotate downward to close the reaction chamber body with a fixed supporting rotating plate arranged at the top end of the rear side of the reaction chamber body as a rotating shaft.

4. The reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material according to claim 1 , wherein the bottom of the leachate collection box is arranged to be low in the front and high in the back, the lower part of the front end of the leachate collection box is further connected with a leachate regulating ball valve, and the leachate regulating ball valve discharges the leachate received in the leachate collection box; and
when the leachate collection box is separated from the discharge port located at the bottom of the reaction chamber body, the stirring paddle inside the reaction chamber body rotates to drive to turn over the fermentation material in the chamber and discharge it from the discharge port into the material receiving trolley.

5. The reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material according to claim 1 , wherein one side of the leachate collection box is connected with a rotating shaft, the rear end of the rotating shaft is fixedly arranged with a gear, the gear meshes with a rack vertically arranged on the rear side of the reaction chamber body, and the upper end of the rack is fixedly connected to an electric push rod fixedly arranged on the rear side of the reaction chamber body;
the electric push rod is controlled by the electrical control cabinet to extend downward or retract upward, during the downward extension of the electric push rod, the gear is driven to rotate in a first direction to drive the rotating shaft to rotate in the opening direction so that the leachate collection box rotates downwards and leaves the discharge port at the bottom of the reaction chamber body so as to make the fermentation material inside the reaction chamber body fall into the material receiving trolley; when the electric push rod is retracted upwards, the gear is driven to rotate in a second direction to drive the rotating shaft to rotate in the closing direction, so that the leachate collection box rotates upwards and closely fits the discharge port at the bottom of the reaction chamber body to close the discharge port.

Assignees

• Nanjing University

Inventors

• Yuan Zengwei
• Wang Yumei
• Wang Zhanlong

Classifications

• G01N2001/2873

  Cutting or cleaving · CPC title

• G01N1/30

  Staining; Impregnating {; Fixation; Dehydration; Multistep processes for preparing samples of tissue, cell or nucleic acid material and the like for analysis} · CPC title

• G01N1/286

  involving mechanical work, e.g. chopping, disintegrating, compacting, homogenising (microtomes G01N1/06; pulverising in general B02C; mixing in general B01F) · CPC title

• C12M41/48

  Automatic or computerized control (automatic analysis G01N35/00) · CPC title

• C12M41/34

  of gas · CPC title