Hand-held pressurized sanitizing system

Abstract

A hand-held system for sanitizing contaminated articles that come into intimate contact with the human body such as scuba diving equipment including aqua lungs, wet-suits, fins, caps and masks comprises structures for exposing confined parts of the gear such as hoses, pressure regulators and mouthpieces to a pressurized flow of fluid using a fluid-conditioning spray gun adapted to mix a germicidal solution into a jet of water or other fluid carrier. The spray gun has a conical nozzle provided with a set of graduated, flexible, feather-edged disks or barbs that can hermetically mate with a number of component apertures of different sizes and shapes.

Description

PRIOR APPLICATION [0001] This is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 199,652 filed Jul. 22, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,168,629, issued Jan. 30, 2007 which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09 / 794,813 filed Feb. 28, 2001, abandoned.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates to sanitizing process and devices used in connection with objects that come into intimate contact with the human body such as SCUBA diving gear, and more particularly, to special spraying and atomizing equipment used to apply a sanitizing solution to a contaminated article. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] The equipment worn by divers such as wet suits, self-contained underwater breathing apparatus best known under the acronym SCUBA or aqualung, the fins and face masks come in intimate contact with various parts of the diver's body. The mouthpiece, tubing, and valve of the aqualung carry fluids and solids exhaled by the diver. The interior of the wet suit comes in contact...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005] The principal and secondary objects of this invention are to provide a method and apparatus for quickly and effectively sanitizing the various pieces of equipment used by scuba divers, or any other equipment worn by a person that comes into intimate contact with human tissue or organ, without requiring dismantling and extensive scrubbing of components, soaking in a large amount of disinfecting fluid, or using complex and bulky equipment, large facilities and intensive labor, in order to minimize or completely prevent cross-infection from one diver to another using the same equipment.

[0006] These and other valuable objects are achieved by the use of a fluid-conditioning sprayer operating from a convenient source of pressurized fluid such as urban water supply to effectively inject and disperse a disinfecting solution over broad open surfaces as well as into complex and circuitous passageways. The sprayer nozzle is particularly adapted to intimately engage and seal a plurality of inlets and apertures of the different sizes and shapes and to effectively disperse the spray into a deeply penetrating stream. The nozzle of the sprayer comprises a plurality of gradually decreasing, circumferential and resiliently compressible flanges which can hermetically adhere to various sized openings.

Problems solved by technology

The tedious and time-consuming practices of dismantling and scrubbing parts is seldom followed.

It has been found that this type of sanitization is not particularly effective against germs that can invade the complex structure of the aqualung where they can retain their infecting potential for several weeks.

Moreover, due to the large amount of sanitizing liquid required in the immersion process, the batch of sanitizing liquid is not replaced after each set of equipment, but, instead, used for long periods of time.

Consequently, the bath may quickly use some of its sanitizing power, and in a worst scenario, contribute to cross-infection from one diver's gear to another.

In many cases, diving equipment may be used repetitively by different divers on board ship, or in remote areas where large quantities of sanitizing liquid is not available.

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