Food Safety: Assessment of Contaimant Migration from Plastic Packaging Materials to Foods, 2009 TAPPI 12th European PLACE Conference

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The presentation summarises the research work carried out to efficiently combine analytical and predictive strategies and to demonstrate the compliance of packaging materials which come into contact with foods with the EU regulation 2004/1935/EC. The main objective was to reduce the cost and time of tests by making use of numerical simulations where possible. These simulations were not only used for the rapid identification of substances but also as an alternative to the measurement of concentrations (either in extracts or migrates) and as a replacement for migration tests.

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) proved to be a rapid and useful technique for the identification and quantification of formulations either in raw samples or in extracts. The formulations tested consisted of between 2 and 5 of the 22 most commonly used additives for polyolefins. Identification and quantification were based on the deconvolution of FTIR spectra along with an optimised spectra database, which contains the responses of pure substances, the chemical groups of polyolefin additives and common polymer residues. All additives were identified and quantified either by the individual substance or the molecular family of polymeric additives. Following this, a new method for partition coefficient estimation was proposed and the estimated partition coefficients used to predict the possible contamination of the food contents by the packaging material. An overall risk evaluation was shown to be possible.