THE USE OF CHEMOMETRIC ANALYSIS IN THE VALIDATION OF FTIR EXTRACTABLE METHODS, USED AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO CHROMATOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS, AS PART OF A CONTROL STRATEGY FOR PLASTIC EXTRACTABLES

摘要

Effective Quality control of extractables from plastics is based upon the ability to ensure compositional consistency. That is, to monitor effectively for changes in the composition of materials that may in turn leach from the material when used as part of a container closure system. A FTIR based system has been developed and validated to monitor for changes in composition. The method is able to detect both change in concentration of additives and change in nature of additives in two commonly used plastics. The method performance has been enhanced and studied by using principal component analysis (PCA) to detect changes in the FTIR spectrum that are linked to composition change. The PCA has provided a tool to demonstrate clearly the method's ability to monitor change effectively beyond that which is easily observed via casual observation.