1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an oxygen-absorbing package and an industrial production method thereof, and more particularly to an improved process for packaging an iron powder-based oxygen-absorbing composition by an air-permeable packaging material using an automatic filling-packaging machine and an oxygen-absorbing package produced by such a method.
The oxygen-absorbing package according to the present invention can be used in preserving foodstuffs, beverages, cosmetics, daily commodities, pharmaceutical products, etc.
2. Prior Art
The oxygen-absorbing composition containing an iron powder as an effective component has been extensively used to remove oxygen in preserving various oxygen sensitive products such as foodstuffs. The oxygen-absorbing composition has been ordinarily formed into an oxygen-absorbing package by packaging the oxygen-absorbing composition including fine powder by an air-permeable packaging material using an automatic filling-packaging machine.
However, in the industrial process of packaging oxygen-absorbing composition using an automatic filling-packaging machine of high productivity, the oxygen-absorbing composition is likely to attach to the outer surface of the packages, thereby causing deterioration in package appearance and posing safety and hygiene problems. In particular, in a filling-packaging operation using an automatic three-sided seal filling-packaging machine of rotary filling type which is capable of producing three-side sealed packages at a production rate as high as 400 packages or more per minute, each bag made of air-permeable packaging material is filled with the oxygen-absorbing composition including fine powder in a short period of time of 0.15 second or less. During such a filling, a portion of the oxygen-absorbing composition fed into each bag from a filling chute bounce up toward the opening of bag due to the reaction of falling. The bounced-up oxygen-absorbing composition is sandwiched in a sealed portion of the bag opening, thereby causing deterioration in both appearance and sealing strength. Further, the bounced-up oxygen-absorbing composition is scattered out of the bag and attached to the outer surface of the bag, resulting in contamination of products to be preserved such as foodstuffs, pharmaceutical products and cosmetics. The iron powder-based oxygen-absorbing composition attached to the outer surface of the packages forms rusts upon absorbing oxygen, resulting in further deterioration in appearance.
To avoid the above disadvantages, there have been proposed to carefully control the operating conditions of the automatic filling-packaging machine and clean the outer surface of each package with brush or cloth. However, these methods are laborious and costly, and in addition, fail to produce satisfactory effects.
In the view point of oxygen-absorbing ability, fine powder of iron has been preferred, but no further investigation has been given to the size distribution of iron powder or oxygen-absorbing composition in an oxygen-absorbing package.