While liquid manual pump and pressurized gas discharge dispensers have been widely implemented in a variety of applications, dispensers for solid materials are less common. In addition to the obvious challenge of increased viscosities, surface friction, and specific weights of solidous materials in comparison to liquid materials, the design of solid material dispensing systems must also contemplate flowability and distribution of the stored material in preparation for dispensation, as well as effects on the flowability of the material in the presence or absence of environmental conditions, such as the effect of moisture accumulation in the solid material container over time. As a consequence of these and other challenges, efforts to develop solid material dispensers have been limited.
A particular shortcoming in the availability of conventional solid material dispensers is an apparatus that is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, so as to be useful in connection with the storage, sale, and dispensation of relatively inexpensive consumer products. Currently available solid material dispensers are either prohibitively expensive to use in connection with low-cost consumer products, and particularly as a disposable consumer product dispenser, and/or are ineffective in consistently dispensing a desired quantity or quality of the solid material.
One conventional approach in solid material dispensation relies upon pressurized gas to disperse the solidous particulate material into a pseudo-suspension for uptake into outlet conduits. The pressurized gas may be air that is pressurized through a manual pumping action by the user, or may be air or another gas releasably stored under pressure in a separate container. Pumping action by the user, or the selective release of pressurized gas from the separate container, or both, act to drive the solidous material into one or more outlet conduits, and possibly as partially suspended in the pressurized gas. Such a conventional approach, however, is inconsistent in delivering a known quantity of the solid material to the outlet conduit, and is variable based upon the specific weight of the product, the amount of the product remaining within the container, the flowability of the product, and changing characteristics of the product in the container over time. Moreover, the conventional systems which rely upon pressurized air to disperse and distribute the solid material product have proven to be inadequate in dispersing and consistently dispensing a known quantity and quality of the product.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a dispenser mechanism for dispensing solvent particulate material, such as a powder, in a known quantity per pump cycle.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a solid particulate material dispenser that effectively maintains a homogeneity of the discharge contents for each pump cycle.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a manual pumping mechanism for mechanically mixing the solidous material product in the container.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a dispenser mechanism that is effective in limiting environmental exposure to the solidous material product in the container.