Novel metered aerosol valve

Nourian, A; Nasr, GG; Yule, AJ; Hawthorne, G; Goldberg, T

Abstract

The design and performance of a new valving mechanism for portable pressurized spraying devices is described, where
the propellant in the device is a safe gas (so-called compressed gas) propellant rather than the current liquefied gases all
of which are either volatile organic compounds or greenhouse gases. The valve sprays a fixed volume of liquid when the
spraying actuator is depressed, as is essential used medical sprays, such as pressurized metered dose inhalers and nasal
sprays, and also for automatic (wall-mounted) aerosol delivery systems for air-fresheners, insecticides and disinfectants.
For ‘compressed gas’ aerosol formats, there is no flash vaporization of propellant so that pumping liquid from a metering
chamber and atomization to form a spray must be achieved entirely by designing some means of using the pumping action
of the gas in the container to act upon the liquid in the metering chamber. The new design utilizes a loosely fitting
spherical piston element and a simple arrangement of a concentric housing and a moveable valve stem, such that liquid
flow paths between the different elements are automatically closed and opened in the correct time sequence when the
valve stem is depressed and released. Spraying data show excellent repeatability of liquid sprayed per pulse throughout
the lifetime of device and drop sizes that are acceptable for devices such as air-fresheners and nasal sprays. The valve has
only one additional component compared with liquefied gas metered valves and can be straightforwardly injection
moulded. As will be explained, previous attempts failed due to expense, complexity and unreliability.

Keywords
Aerosol valve, spray metering, insert, inhaler, air-freshener

Citation

Nourian, A., Nasr, G., Yule, A., Hawthorne, G., & Goldberg, T. (2016). Novel metered aerosol valve. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, 230(10), 1557-1568. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954406215572839

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 21, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Feb 17, 2015
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 30, 2019
• Journal: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science
• Print ISSN: 0954-4062
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Volume: 230
• Issue: 10
• Pages: 1557-1568
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0954406215572839
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0954406215572839
• Related Public URLs: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/journal/proceedings-institution-mechanical-engineers-part-c-journal-mechanical-engineering-science