Development of active packaging for cosmetics and study of the migration of oxygen scavenger

Active packaging systems have been developed to extend the shelf life of products because passive packaging systems cannot completely solve the problems of degradation due to oxygen dissolved in products or contained in the headspace in packages. One of the most commonly used techniques in active packaging is the sachet type of oxygen absorbing system composed of iron powder. However, the use of a sachet has been considered a safety problem in Europe due to migration from oxygen scavengers. Therefore, the overall objective of this research was to develop a multilayer film that could reduce the migration of the main components from iron based oxygen scavengers more than do sachets, and active packaging which could extend the shelf life of oxygen sensitive cosmetics containing retinol.The active packaging rapidly reduced the oxygen concentration of the headspace compared with conventional packaging. It reached 0.0 % within 30 days and stayed lower than 0.1 % for 180 days from an initial value of 20.9 %, while conventional packaging remained near 10.0 % after 180 days stored at 23 °C and 65 % RH. In evaluating the shelf life of retinol in cosmetics, the concentration in the conventional packaging was rapidly reduced from 3,464 IU to 2,511 IU after 24 weeks stored at 23 °C and 65 % RH, while the concentration in the active packages remained over 3,000 lU after 24 weeks.From SEM & EDS analysis, the main elements of the oxygen scavenger in the core layer of multilayer films were identified as iron, sodium and chloride. Quantitative analysis of the migration of the main elements into various food simulants was conducted using atomic absorption (AA) spectrometry for both types of oxygen scavengers. For the sum of the main components (NaCl+CaCl 2+Fe2O3) for OS1 in 3 % acetic acid, the highest value among the food simulants was 2.322 mg/L, and for OS2 was 0.928 mg/L. These values were all much less than the EU limit for total migration of 60 mg/L (90/128/EEC). Throughout the observation of the migration behavior for the main elements by SEM & EDS, no migration of any of these main elements was detected in the inner layer adjacent to the core layer containing oxygen scavenger of multilayer films, but they could be observed from the seamed parting line in a tube. This means that the main elements of oxygen scavenger in the core layer of the OS films did not pass through the inner layer and did not contact the food simulants and cosmetic. Therefore, it is assumed that the migration detected was from the exposed scam in the tube or from the exposed edges of the core layer in the migration disks.