Safety and Quality of Plastic Food Contact Materials. Optimization of Extraction Time and Extraction Yield, Based on Arithmetic Rules Derived from Mathematical Description of Diffusion. Application to Control Strategies

摘要

Migration of packaging constituents into food may raise concerns about food safety. This paper describes the conclusions of a EU research project (AIR 941025), aiming to facilitate the introduction of migration control into good manufacturing practice and into enforcement policies. The first part describes a re-evaluation of analytical approaches to extract and identify potential migrants released by plastic materials, viz. comparison of analytical methods, choice of extraction solvents and of fat simulants. Here we focus on the extraction time needed to achieve a given extraction yield. By correlating these parameters with simple and practical equations, it is possible to design alternative tests for control of compliance of packaging plastics. Using a reference experiment (where there is good agreement between experimental and calculated kinetic curves), it is possible to calculate the percentage of extraction which can be achieved in a given time, or the time necessary to reach a target extraction level for other polymer/solvent combinations. A global control scheme is proposed, which indicates whether and when calculation and testing should be applied. Guidelines are proposed, and can be adapted to both industrial control and to enforcement laboratories.