Sterilizing system for filled and sealed articles

Abstract

An improved sterilizing system for filled and sealed articles which are treated by way of the steps of filling a content into packing means and sealing the filled articles in a filling and sealing station, loading a tray with the filled and sealed articles, building up a tray stack including a predetermined number of loaded trays stacked thereon, sterilizing the tray stacks in a sterilizer and then conveying them to a packing station, wherein the improvement consists in an arrangement of a combination of a tray stack building station for building up a tray stack including a predetermined number of empty trays recovered after the filled and sealed articles are released toward the packing station, a tray stack holding conveyor for holding a plurality of tray stacks built up in said tray stack building station and a tray extracting station in which the empty trays are extracted from the tray stack conveyed from said tray stack holding conveyor one by one and then they are delivered toward the filling and sealing station. The sterilizing system further includes a tray stack holding conveyor having an ample holding capacity, said tray stack holding conveyor being located downstream of the sterilizer. The sterilizing system may be provided with an additional line of conveyance system including a sterilizer which is arranged in parallel to the aforesaid line of conveyance system including the sterilizer.