title: Interlaboratory Study on Caprolactam Test for Food-Contact Nylon Products.
abstract: The Japanese Food Sanitation Law sets a limit on the migration level of caprolactam for food-contacting nylon products. Here, we carried out an interlaboratory study in twenty laboratories to evaluate the performance of the official GC-FID test method and a GC-MS method as an alternative test method to the official method. Each laboratory quantified caprolactam in three test solutions in 20% ethanol as blind duplicates using GC-FID or GC-MS. The official method (GC-FID with absolute calibration) gave trueness, repeatability (RSDr) and reproducibility (RSDr) values of 96-97%, 3.3-5.4% and 4.0-6.7%, respectively. These values met the target criteria (trueness: 80-110%, RSDr: 10%, RSDr: 25%). The performance of the method was further improved by the introduction of heptalactam as an internal standard. As for GC-MS method, some values of the RSDr exceeded 10% when absolute calibration was used. However, when an internal standard was introduced, the trueness, RSDr and RSDr of GC-MS method were all acceptable at 94-96%, 2.0-4.4% and 7.0-9.4%, respectively. Therefore, GC-MS with an internal standard is available as an alternative test method to the official method.
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Office, Japan Chemical Innovation and Inspection Institute.
authors.forename: Kazunari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Motoh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mutsuga
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Tomoyuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Ikue
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ohsaka
authors.forename: Haruka
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: Yuichiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: Asako
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ozaki
authors.forename: Yoshiteru
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kakihara
authors.forename: Hisashi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Takahide
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kondo
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shibata
authors.forename: Katsuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shirono
authors.forename: Haruko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sekido
authors.forename: Hironori
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sonobe
authors.forename: Noriko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Takasaka
authors.forename: Yoshiyasu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tajima
authors.forename: Aoi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Hideyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakanishi
authors.forename: Chie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nomura
authors.forename: Nahoko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Haneishi
authors.forename: Masato
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hayakawa
authors.forename: Akinori
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hikida
authors.forename: Toshihiko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.forename: Miku
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.forename: Kyoko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Akiyama
mesh_terms: D002209:Caprolactam / Q000032:analysis*; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D003297:Cooking and Eating Utensils; D005504:Food Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D018857:Food Packaging; D059022:Food Safety; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D007753:Laboratories; D007881:Legislation, Food / Q000592:standards; D009757:Nylons / Q000737:chemistry*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence
chemical_list: D009757:Nylons; D002209:Caprolactam