Search Results (31)

The recycling of post-consumer plastics for food-contact applications is subject to stringent regulatory requirements, particularly with regard to the removal of potentially harmful non-intentionally added substances (NIAS). While polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling processes are already approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), there is a lack of guidance for other polymers like polystyrene (PS). This study aims to provide a scientific basis for assessing the decontamination efficiency required for recycled post-consumer PS in food-contact applications. As one of the first studies to propose a framework for PS decontamination assessment based on EFSA food-consumption data and conservative diffusion modeling, it contributes to filling this regulatory gap. First, European food-consumption data were analyzed to identify critical scenarios of the age-group-dependent intake of PS-packaged food. Based on this, a conservative migration model was applied using a one-dimensional diffusion simulation to determine the maximum allowable initial concentrations of NIAS in PS. The calculated values were then compared with published reference contamination levels to calculate the required cleaning efficiency. The combination of food-consumption values and the migration process showed that trays for fruits and vegetables are the most critical food-contact application for post-consumer PS recycling. The most stringent assumptions resulted in necessary decontamination efficiencies ranging from 92% for the smallest molecule, toluene (92.14 g/mol), to 42% for the largest molecule, methyl stearate (298.50 g/mol). The results provide a methodological basis for regulatory assessments and offer practical guidance for designing safe recycling processes, thereby supporting the circular use of PS in food packaging and building the basis for future regulatory assessments of other polymers, in line with the European Union Plastics Strategy and circular economy objectives. Full article

Non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) in plastic food contact materials represent a critical undercharacterized chemical safety concern, caused by their inherent diversity, potential toxicity, and regulatory challenges. This review synthesizes recent advances and persistent gaps in NIAS analysis, with a primary focus on analytical workflows for non-targeted analysis, alongside a consideration of risk assessment and toxicological prioritization frameworks. Conventional plastics (e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, or polyethylene terephthalate) as well as emerging materials (e.g., bioplastics and recycled polymers) exhibit different NIAS profiles, including oligomers, degradation products, additives, and contaminants, requiring specific approaches for migration testing, extraction, and detection. Advanced techniques, such as ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography or two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry, have enabled non-targeted analysis approaches. However, the field remains constrained by spectral library gaps, limited reference standards, and inconsistent data processing protocols, resulting in heavy reliance on tentative identifications. Risk assessment procedures mainly employ the Threshold of Toxicological Concern and classification by Cramer’s rules. Nevertheless, addressing genotoxicity, mixture effects, and novel hazards from recycled or bio-based polymers remains challenging with these approaches. Future priorities and efforts may include expanding spectral databases, harmonizing analytical protocols, and integrating in vitro bioassays with computational toxicology to refine hazard characterization. Full article

A novel biodegradable food packaging material based on cassava thermoplastic starch (TPS) and polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) blends containing food preservatives was successfully developed using blown-film extrusion. This active packaging is designed to enhance the appearance, taste, and color of food products, while delaying quality deterioration. However, the incorporation of food preservatives directly influences consumer perception, as well as health and safety concerns. Therefore, this research aims to assess the risks associated with both intentionally added substances (IAS) and non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) present in the developed active packaging. The migration of both intentionally and non-intentionally added substances (IAS and NIAS) was evaluated using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS). Fifteen different volatile compounds were detected, with the primary compound identified as 1,6-dioxacyclododecane-7,12-dione, originating from the PBAT component. This compound, along with others, resulted from the polymerization of adipic acid, terephthalic acid, and butanediol, forming linear and cyclic PBAT oligomers. Migration experiments were conducted using three food simulants—95% ethanol, 10% ethanol, and 3% acetic acid—over a period of 10 days at 60 °C. No migration above the detection limits of the analytical methods was observed for 3% acetic acid and 10% ethanol. However, migration studies with 95% ethanol revealed the presence of new compounds formed through interactions between the simulant and PBAT monomers or oligomers, indicating the packaging’s sensitivity to high-polarity food simulants. Nevertheless, the levels of these migrated compounds remained below the regulatory migration limits. Full article

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is widely used in the food and beverage packaging sector due to its chemical and mechanical properties. Although PET is a fossil-based polymer, its recyclability significantly contributes to reducing the environmental impacts caused by excessive plastic consumption. However, the growing demand for post-consumer recycled PET (PET-PCR) food packaging has raised concerns about the efficiency of decontamination processes involved in recycling this material. This review initially addresses PET synthesis processes, highlighting injection stretch blow molding as the predominant technique for packaging production. It then discusses reverse logistics as a strategy to promote sustainability through the recovery of post-consumer packaging, such as plastic bottles. This review examines mechanical and chemical recycling methods used in PET-PCR production, food safety requirements including positive lists of permitted substances, contaminant migration limits, non-intentionally added substances (NIASs), and updated criteria for the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) of food-grade PET-PCR resins. Finally, the review explores future prospects for using PET-PCR in the food and beverage packaging sector, assessing its environmental impacts and potential technological advancements to enhance its sustainability and safety. Full article

Polyethylene (PE) is a widely used material for packaging food. However, certain additives and their degradation products, which may be generated during transformation processes, may pose risks to consumers health if they migrate into food at levels exceeding safety thresholds. Therefore, identifying and quantifying these potential migrant compounds is crucial to ensuring consumer safety. In the present work, PE films and the raw materials used in their production were kindly provided by the industry to evaluate undesired compounds throughout the PE transformation chain. For that purpose, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds were evaluated using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Alkanes were identified as the most abundant compounds, along with antioxidants, lubricants, or Non-Intentionally Added Substances (NIAS), like 7,9-di-tert-butyl-1-oxaspiro(4,5)deca-6,9-diene-2,8-dione in the films. For the unidentified compounds, evaluations were conducted at various stages of the transformation chain, and migration assays were performed to assess their behavior. Full article

The ecological transition is leading industry towards the use of materials of natural origin, which are often proposed for food contact materials as a sustainable solution to reduce plastic use. They are perceived as safe by consumers; however, a strict control on potential contaminants able to migrate to food and beverages is necessary to assess safety. Thus, the development of analytical methods for the detection and the identification of potentially occurring harmful substances is strongly encouraged, and the combination of different techniques can be a solution to obtain complementary information. In this work, GC-MS, HPLC-MS, ATR-IR and ESEM have been exploited with the aim of monitoring both volatile and non-volatile compounds, and to control surface composition and morphology. Extraction with solvent and migration experiments with simulants were performed on 11 commercial samples, including plates, caps, and wooden coffee stirrers. Global and specific migration studies were carried out, and possible differences before and after use were explored. Analysis after solvent extraction confirmed the presence of additives, and of Non-Intentionally-Added Substances (NIAS) that were also found in migration studies. Data on morphological characterisation were useful to control the item composition, and to check the stability of the materials after repeated use. Full article

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a known substance that is found in food contact materials as an intentionally added as well as a non-intentionally added substance. Traces of BPA were found as a non-intentionally added substance in recycled PET (rPET). In 2023, the EFSA proposed a new TDI of 0.0002 µg/kg bw/d, which is lower than the previous (temporary) TDI of 4 µg/kg bw/d by a factor of 20,000. The TDI of 0.0002 µg/kg bw/d would translate for a default 60 kg person eating one kilogram of food into a migration limit of 0.012 µg/kg in the food. This very low migration limit is a challenge to measuring BPA levels in food. A solution is to use migration modeling to establish maximum concentrations in rPET for different food contact applications. Precise diffusion coefficients for BPA in PET were determined within this study by use of migration kinetics. In June 2024, the European Commission proposed a new migration threshold limit for BPA of 1 µg/kg, which should be understood as a detection limit. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that a BPA concentration in the PET bottle wall of 297 mg/kg (3% acetic acid), 255 mg/kg (10% ethanol), and 192 mg/kg (20% ethanol) after storage for 365 d at 25 °C is in compliance with the migration threshold limit of 1 µg/kg. These maximum concentrations are far above the measured BPA concentrations on rPET bottles in Europe between 2019 and 2023. Therefore, the new proposed migration threshold limit for BPA cannot be exceeded. Full article

Despite the extensive use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) in food contact materials (FCMs), research on the presence of heavy metals (HMs) and rare earth elements (REEs) during various recycling stages (e.g., flakes, granules, and preforms) remains limited. This study aimed to address these gaps by validating a rapid and sensitive analytical method to quantify 26 HMs and 4 REEs in PET and rPET matrices. An ICP-MS method was validated per EURACHEM guidelines, assessing linearity, limits of detection (LOD), limits of quantification (LOQ), accuracy, and repeatability. The method was employed for initial screening of HMs and REEs classified as non-intentionally added substances (NIASs) in PET and rPET samples. The findings showed high accuracy and reliability, with recovery rates between 80% and 120%. Analysis revealed varying concentrations of HMs and REEs, with the highest levels in 100% rPET preforms, notably Zn, Cu, and Al among HMs, and La among REEs. The study identified critical contamination points during the recycling process, highlighting the need for targeted interventions. This research provides a crucial analytical framework for assessing HMs and REEs in PET and rPET, ensuring FCM safety compliance and supporting efforts to enhance rPET product safety, promoting public health protection and advancing the circular economy. Full article

Wine quality and safety is affected by the food contact materials (FCMs) used. These materials are expected to protect the beverage from any chemical, physical, or biological hazard and preserve its composition stable throughout its shelf-life. However, the migration of chemical substances from FCMs is a known phenomenon and requires monitoring. This review distinguishes the migrating chemical substances to those of (i) industrial origin with potential safety effects and those of (ii) natural occurrence, principally in cork (ex. tannins) with organoleptic quality effects. The review focuses on the migration of industrial chemical contaminants. Migration testing has been applied only for cork stoppers and tops, while other materials like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles with aluminum cups, paperboard cartons, stainless steel vats, and oak casks have been examined for the presence of chemical migrating substances only by wine analysis without migration testing. The dominant analytical techniques applied are gas and liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) for the determination of organic compounds and Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and ICP-MS for elemental analysis. Targeted approaches are mostly applied, while limited non-target methodologies are reported. The identified migrating substances include authorized substances like phthalate plasticizers, monomers (bisphenol A), antioxidants (Irganox 1010), known but non-authorized substances (butylparaben), break-down products, oxidation products (nonylphenol), polyurethane adhesive by-products, oligomers, ink photoinitiators, and inorganic elements. A preliminary investigation of microplastics’ migration has also been reported. It is proposed that further research on the development of comprehensive workflows of target, suspect, and non-target analysis is required to shed more light on the chemical world of migration for the implementation of an efficient risk assessment and management of wine contact materials. Full article

Phthalates are the synthetic chemical plasticizers with the most varied uses and are a source of concern due to their toxicity and ubiquity, so much so that even plasticizer-free polymers can contain them as non-intentionally added substances (NIAS). Food packaging is among the materials with the greatest impact. In this study, a simple protocol is proposed for the location and identification of dimethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, dipropyl phthalate, and dibutyl phthalate which is applicable to compliance studies of food packaging materials and for the associated risk assessment. Solid phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry was used to evaluate the migration of four NIAS from food packaging to release media simulating food substrates. Three plasticizer-free polymers were used: two that were lab-made and based on sodium alginate and a commercial polyethylene film. Linearity ranged from the LOQ to 10 µg/mL; within-day and between-day precision values were between 12.3–25.7% and 21.9–35.8%, respectively; the LOD and LOQ were in the range 0.029–0.073 µg/mL and 0.122–0.970 µg/mL. Migration tests were conducted for different periods of time at room temperature and at 8 °C. Exposure to microwaves (MW) was also evaluated. All packaging materials tested had global migration limits lower than 10 mg/dm² of material surface. Full article

Oligomers are a particular category of non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) that may be present in food contact materials (FCMs), such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and consequently migrate into foods. Here, an ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-qTOF-MS) method was developed for the analysis of 1st series cyclic PET oligomers in virgin olive oil (VOO) following a QuEChERS clean-up protocol. Oligomer migration was evaluated with two different migration experiments using bottles from virgin and recycled PET: one with VOO samples stored in household conditions for a year and one using the food simulant D2 (95% v/v ethanol in water) at 60 °C for 10 days. Calibration curves were constructed with fortified VOO samples, with the LOQs ranging from 10 to 50 µg L⁻¹ and the recoveries ranging from 86.6 to 113.0%. Results showed no migration of PET oligomers in VOO. However, in the simulated study, significant amounts of all oligomers were detected, with the migration of cyclic PET trimers from recycled bottles being the most abundant. Additional substances were tentatively identified as linear derivatives of PET oligomers. Again, open trimer structures in recycled bottles gave the most significant signals. Full article

The safety of food contact materials is a hot topic since chemicals can migrate from packaging into food, thus raising health concerns about and/or producing changes in the organoleptic properties of foodstuffs. Migration tests are required to demonstrate the compliance with current regulations and to investigate the transferred compounds. In this context, mass spectrometry is the analytical technique of choice for the detection and quantitation of both intentionally added substances, such as antioxidants, stabilizers, processing aids, and non-intentionally added substances (NIAS). Untargeted strategies represent a major analytical challenge, providing a comprehensive fingerprinting of the packaging material and migrating components, allowing for NIAS identification. Hyphenated mass spectrometry-based techniques have been devised for screening the presence of migrating contaminants and for quantitation purposes. Both low-resolution (LRMS) and high-resolution (HRMS) methods were screened, with a special emphasis on the latter because of its capability to directly characterize food contact materials with minimal/no sample preparation, avoiding chromatographic separation, and reducing sample handling, analysis costs, and time. Examples related to the migration of contaminants from existing or newly developed bioplastic materials will be discussed, providing an overview of the most used MS-based methods, covering the state-of-the-art approaches from 2012 up to 2022. Full article

According to the European circular economy strategy, all plastic packaging placed on the market by 2030 has to be recyclable. However, for recycled plastics in direct contact with food, there are still major safety concerns because (non-)intentionally added substances can potentially migrate from recycled polymers into foodstuffs. Therefore, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has derived very low migration limits (e.g., 0.1 µg/L for recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and 0.06 µg/L for recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE)) for recycled polymers. Thus, the use of recyclates from post-consumer waste materials in direct food contact is currently only possible for PET. A first step in assessing potential health hazards is, therefore, the identification and toxicological classification of detected substances. Within this study, samples of post-consumer recyclates from different packaging-relevant recycling materials (HDPE, LDPE, PE, PP, PET, and PS) were analyzed. The detected substances were identified and examined with a focus on their abundance, toxicity (Cramer classification), polarity (log P values), chemical diversity, and origin (post-consumer substances vs. virgin base polymer substances). It was demonstrated that polyolefins contain more substances classified as toxic than PET, potentially due to their higher diffusivity. In addition, despite its low diffusivity compared to polyolefins, a high number of substances was found in PS. Further, post-consumer substances were found to be significantly more toxicologically concerning than virgin base polymer substances. Additionally, a correlation between high log P values and a high Cramer classification was found. It was concluded that PET is currently the only polymer that complies with EFSA’s requirements for a circular economy. However, better-structured collection systems and cleaning processes, as well as more analytical methods that enable a highly sensitive detection and identification of substances, might offer the possibility of implementing other polymers into recycling processes in the future. Full article

According to European regulations, migration from food packaging must be safe. However, currently, there is no consensus on how to evaluate its safety, especially for non-intentionally added substances (NIAS). The intensive and laborious approach, involving identification and then quantification of all migrating substances followed by a toxicological evaluation, is not practical or feasible. In alignment with the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) and the European Union (EU) guidelines on packaging materials, efforts are focused on combining data from analytics, bioassays and in silico toxicology approaches for the risk assessment of packaging materials. Advancement of non-targeted screening approaches using both analytical methods and in vitro bioassays is key. A protocol was developed for the chemical and biological screening of migrants from coated metal packaging materials. This protocol includes guidance on sample preparation, migrant simulation, chemical analysis using liquid chromatography (LC-MS) and validated bioassays covering endocrine activity, genotoxicity and metabolism-related targets. An inter-laboratory study was set-up to evaluate the consistency in biological activity and analytical results generated between three independent laboratories applying the developed protocol and guidance. Coated packaging metal panels were used in this case study. In general, the inter-laboratory chemical analysis and bioassay results displayed acceptable consistency between laboratories, but technical differences led to different data interpretations (e.g., cytotoxicity, cell passages, chemical analysis). The study observations with the greatest impact on the quality of the data and ultimately resulting in discrepancies in the results are given and suggestions for improvement of the protocol are made (e.g., sample preparation, chemical analysis approaches). Finally, there was agreement on the need for an aligned protocol to be utilized by qualified laboratories for chemical and biological analyses, following best practices and guidance for packaging safety assessment of intentionally added substances (IAS) and NIAS to avoid inconsistency in data and the final interpretation. Full article

Plant fiber/plastic composites (PPCs) have been widely used in food contact materials (FCMs) for many benefits, such as their claimed better environmental footprint compared to conventional plastics. However, their safety is still not fully understood and must be comprehensively evaluated. Non-volatiles extracted from six PPCs with different plant fibers and polymer matrices were characterized by employing ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry in combination with various spectral libraries and manual elucidation, taking into account spectral similarity and characteristic product ions. A total of 115 compounds were tentatively identified, 50 of which were oligomers or their derivatives from the sample with polylactic acid (PLA) and polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) as the polymer matrix, and some of them were Cramer rules class III substances based on the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC). Seven reaction products between PLA and PBAT monomers, as well as four derivatives of melamine, were elucidated and well detailed for the first time. In addition, bisphenol S was detected in all samples even though its origin remains to be further explored. Isoprothiolane, as an insecticide and fungicide used to control a range of rice pests, was identified in the sample with rice husk as fillers, experimentally confirming the presence of agrochemicals in samples containing plant fibers. Full article