Fabric phase sorptive extraction: An innovative sample preparation approach applied to the analysis of specific migration from food packaging

Additives added to food packaging materials can migrate to food in contact with them during storage and shelf life. A novel simple, fast and sensitive analyte extraction method based on fabric phase sorptive extraction (FPSE), followed by analysis using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry detection (UPLC-MS) was applied to the analysis of 18 common non-volatile plastic additives. Three FPSE media coated with different sol-gel sorbents characterized with different polarities including sol-gel poly(dimethylsiloxane), sol-gel poly(ethylene glycol) and sol-gel poly(tetrahydrofuran) were studied. All three FPSE media showed very satisfactory results. In general, compounds with low logP values seemed to have higher enrichment factors (EFs), especially with poly(tetrahydrofuran) and poly(ethylene glycol) media. For compounds with high logP values, the use of sol-gel poly(dimethylsiloxane) improved the enrichment capacity. Sample preparation time was optimized at 20 min for sample extraction and 10 min for solvent desorption. Acetonitrile was selected as desorption solvent since recoveries were over 70% for 13 out of 18 selected compounds in all FPSE media. The best extraction recovery values were obtained when compounds were dissolved in aqueous acetic acid solution (3%), where 17 out of 18 compounds showed improvement in their signal intensity after FPSE extraction and 10 obtained enrichment factors above 3 for all the tested FPSE media. When FPSE extracts were concentrated under nitrogen, 11 out of 18 compounds reached EFs values above 100.     

Atmospheric pressure gas chromatography coupled to quadrupole‐time of flight mass spectrometry as a tool for identification of volatile migrants from autoadhesive labels used for direct food contact

Pressure‐sensitive adhesives (PSA) are used to manufacture labels that are applied directly on the food. These adhesives could contain not only intentionally added compounds (IAS) to the adhesive formula but also non‐intentionally added substances (NIAS), due to the impurities from the raw materials used, decomposition of the initial components or from chemical interactions between them. These compounds could migrate to the food and contaminate it. In this study, gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC‐MS/Q) and atmospheric pressure gas chromatography coupled to a quadrupole hyphenated to a time of flight mass spectrometer (APGC‐MS/Q‐TOF) have been used for identification of unknown compounds and NIAS coming from a PSA. Seven compounds were identified by GC‐MS/Q, and other eight compounds remained initially unknown. The structure of these eight new compounds was elucidated by working with the spectra obtained by APGC‐MS/Q‐TOF. Finally, two different migration studies were carried out. The first one with Tenax as solid food simulant in contact with the paper label containing the adhesive and the second one with isooctane filled in a natural pork intestine where the label containing the adhesive was applied on the external side. The results are shown and discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Migration of non intentionally added substances from adhesives by UPLC–Q‐TOF/MS and the role of EVOH to avoid migration in multilayer packaging materials

Polyurethane adhesives are commonly used to laminate multilayer packaging materials for food. Since these materials are in direct contact with the food, compounds could migrate from adhesive into it. For this reason, it is important to identify all the potential migrants and verify their migration. Ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography–quadrupole time‐of‐flight–mass spectrometry analyses and ChemSpider database are used to identify the potential migrants from polyurethane adhesives, and these techniques were demonstrated to be very powerful and useful tools for this purpose. Migration tests were carried out using Tenax® as food simulant. Nine out of fifteen non‐volatile compounds, identified in the cured adhesives, migrated. Most of them were identified as cyclic compounds, adipic based, which is the most commonly used monomer to make the polyester/polyol resins for polyurethane bi‐component adhesives. In this work, the use of EvOH layer in several multilayer materials to minimize or avoid migration was evaluated too. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.