Correlation of foodstuffs with ethanol-water mixtures with regard to the solubility of migrants from food contact materials.
Today most foods are available in a packed form. During storage, the migration of chemical substances from food packaging materials into food may occur and may therefore be a potential source of consumer exposure. To protect the consumer, standard migration tests are laid down in Regulation (EU) No. 10/2011. When using those migration tests and applying additional conservative conventions, estimated exposure is linked with large uncertainties including a certain margin of safety. Thus the research project FACET was initiated within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission with the aim of developing a probabilistic migration modelling framework which allows one (1) to calculate migration into foods under real conditions of use; and (2) to deliver realistic concentration estimates for consumer exposure modelling for complex packaging materials (including multi-material multilayer structures). The aim was to carry out within the framework of the FACET project a comprehensive systematic study on the solubility behaviour of foodstuffs for potentially migrating organic chemicals. Therefore a rapid and convenient method was established to obtain partition coefficients between polymer and food, KP/F. With this method approximately 700 time-dependent kinetic experiments from spiked polyethylene films were performed using model migrants, foods and ethanol-water mixtures. The partition coefficients of migrants between polymer and food (KP/F) were compared with those obtained using ethanol-water mixtures (KP/F's) to investigate whether an allocation of food groups with common migration behaviour to certain ethanol-water mixtures could be made. These studies have confirmed that the solubility of a migrant is mainly dependent on the fat content in the food and on the ethanol concentration of ethanol-water mixtures. Therefore dissolution properties of generic food groups for migrants can be assigned to those of ethanol-water mixtures. All foodstuffs (including dry foods) when allocated to FACET model food group codes can be classified into a reduced number of food categories each represented by a corresponding ethanol-water equivalency.
a Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV) , Freising , Germany.
Annika
A
Seiler
Aurélie
A
Bach
Malcolm
M
Driffield
Perfecto
P
Paseiro Losada
Peter
P
Mercea
Valer
V
Tosa
Roland
R
Franz
D000272:Adipates / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity; D000465:Algorithms; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D002951:Citrates / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity; D000431:Ethanol; D005062:European Union; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D018857:Food Packaging / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D064088:Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D020959:Polyethylene / Q000032:analysis; D012995:Solubility; D020058:Styrene / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity; D014867:Water
D000272:Adipates; D002951:Citrates; D014867:Water; C014953:2-acetyltributylcitrate; C013966:dioctyl adipate; D000431:Ethanol; D020058:Styrene; D020959:Polyethylene