TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a lid for a cooking vessel. In particular, the present invention relates to a lid that detects and prevents boiling over situation that may result in staining or even damaging the cooking vessel, a cooktop or a kitchen cabinet or ultimately kitchen's floor.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Boiling over is a situation when a liquid (or vessel's content in general), that is being heated, rises up and flows over the edge of the cooking vessel.

Typically, in any cooking vessel having a lid, during cooking near the boiling point of food present in said vessel (for example pasta etc.), foam may form, which may spill over the edge of said vessel, displacing the lid and causing the contents of said vessel to overflow down its sides of the outer walls and further onto a cooktop.

Said foam rises mainly because of the presence of the lid, which prevents normal venting and cooling of the boiling surface. On the other hand, such lid is beneficial in order to keep the heat inside said vessel as it reduces energy use, and shortens boiling time.

Thus, it is frequently required to personally, supervise the cooking constantly in order to detect a possibility of boiling over and preventing said boiling over. This in turn is inconvenient. Sometimes boiling over is so rapid, that even if a person is present in the kitchen, the person may still miss the beginning of the boiling over process.

As a solution, some lids provide a small aperture (diameter in a range of few millimeters) in the lid to let excess pressure escape via the aperture. However, a small aperture sufficient to decrease pressure will not be sufficient to prevent boiling over.

Prior art defines “A cooking vessel for an induction cooktop” EP3226650A1, which discloses a cooking vessel comprising at least one movable magnetic material base plate provided at heat conducting zone of the cooking vessel, wherein the movable magnetic material base plate transfers heat from the induction cooktop to contents in the cooking vessel.

The cooking vessel further comprises at least one non-magnetic material base plate, placed adjacent to the at least one movable magnetic material base plate, wherein the non-magnetic material base plate blocks transfer of heat from induction cooktop to the contents. Further, an insulation pocket, placed adjacent to the at least one movable magnetic material base plate, is configured to house the at least one movable magnetic material base plate. Furthermore, an actuator is configured to displace the at least one movable magnetic material base plate from the heat conducting zone to the insulation pocket based on a control signal.

Therefore, the solution of EP3226650A1 is limited to induction cooktops and at the same time results in wasting energy, because the cooktop still operates at the previous power, while the vessel is prevented from transferring this power to the food being prepared.

It would be advantageous to present a solution that would be more efficient at preventing boiling over, would be more energy efficient and will be applicable to all types of cooktops.

The aim of the development of the present invention is an improved and cost effective method and system for detecting a possibility of boiling over and preventing said boiling over.

SUMMARY AND OBJECTS OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

There is disclosed a system for detecting a possibility of boiling over and preventing said boiling over comprising a vessel (101) having a vessel's lid (102), the lid (102) being characterised in that it is configured to: receive information on an initial level of the vessel's content and current level of the vessel's content; and establish on which heating section (135) of a particular cooktop (107) the vessel (101) and the lid (102) are positioned; and based on a difference between the initial level and the current level as well as the time of the creation of said difference: the lid (102) is configured to instruct, by means of a controller (203), a height actuator (207) of the lid (102) to extend said lid (102) vertically, in order to extend height of said vessel (101); and the lid (102) is configured to instruct, by means of a controller (203), an aperture actuator (206) to create an aperture in the lid's (102) top in order to facilitate exchange of heat; the lid (102) is configured to communicate (201) with said cooktop (107) in order to decrease power generation on said heating section (135).

Preferably, said height actuator (207) extends said height of the lid by means of a spring or an electric motor.

Preferably, said aperture actuator (206) creates said aperture of the lid by means of a spring or an electric motor.

Preferably, said height actuator (207) comprises a release mechanism configured to extend a flange (1005) between the lid's (102) bottom portion (1100) and the lid's (102) top portion.

Preferably, a content level sensor (202), providing said information on level of the vessel's content, is submersible in the vessel's content and mounted on an extensible, multi-segment support (1104).

Preferably, said establishing step employs a proximity identification circuit of said lid (102).

Preferably, said controller (203) is configured to communicate via a communication module (201) with a mobile device (104) in order to report to the mobile device (104), information regarding whether a boiling over situation has been prevented or not.

Preferably, said communication module (201) operated according to the Bluetooth or ZigBee protocol.

There is also disclosed a method for detecting a possibility of boiling over and preventing said boiling over in a vessel (101) covered with a lid (102), said method being characterised in that it comprises the step of: detecting (301) an initial content level by a sensor (202); detecting (302) a current content level by a sensor (202); establishing on which heating section (135) of a particular cooktop (107) the vessel (101) and the lid (102) are positioned; verifying (303) whether a predefined threshold has been met (303) between said initial and current content level; when said threshold has been met, invoking (306) a height actuator (207) of the lid (102) to extend said lid (102) vertically, in order to extend height of said vessel (101), and at the same time communicating (201) with said cooktop (107) in order to decrease power generation on said heating section (135).

Preferably, after the level threshold condition has been met, the system executes a step of awaiting (304) a time threshold condition (304) between said initial and current content level.

Preferably, the method further comprises the steps of: waiting for a predefined threshold of time and verifying (307) whether the content level still rises and in case it does invoking an aperture actuator (308) configured to create an aperture in the lid's (102) top in order to facilitate exchange of heat; awaiting (309) a content level decrease threshold condition to be met and in case it is met: closing the aperture actuator (310) thereby closing said aperture; and closing the height actuator (311) thereby decreasing back said extended height of the lid (102); and returning the heating power to its original setting, by communicating such request to said cooktop (107).

Preferably, said establishing step comprises the steps of: establishing (321) a communication between the lid (102) and said cooktop (107); communicating (322) identifiers both ways such that the lid (102) is aware of the cooktop's identifier (107) and vice versa; based on exchanged data, establishing (323A,323B) a correspondence between said lid (102) and said heating section (135) of the cooktop (107).

Another object of the present invention is a computer program comprising program code means for performing all the steps of the computer-implemented method according to the present invention when said program is run on a computer.

Another object of the present invention is a computer readable medium storing computer-executable instructions performing all the steps of the computer implemented method according to the present invention when executed on a computer.

