Safety Research On Food Contact Materials

Plastic,paper and board materials are the most widely used in food contact materials.When it comes into contact with food,small molecules in the material will migrate into foods,posing a safety risk to foods.Therefore,a risk assessment of food contact materials is required to ensure that it does not endanger the health of consumers.Chromatography-Mass spectrometry has the advantages of high throughput and high sensitivity.It is widely used in the study of migratory substances in food contact materials.This paper,based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry(UPLC-Q-TOF-MS),carrying out safety assessment of polyethylene terephthalate(PET),polyamide(PA)and polylactic acid(PLA)three kinds of common plastic teabags and recycled PET(r PET)full-chain products.At the same time,this paper combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS),the safety assessment of food contact materials of different color paper straws was carried out.The results are as follows:(1)Non-targeted screening of migratory substances produced by PET,PA and PLA tea bags under the migration conditions specified in EU Regulation No 10/2011 by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS,the migrants in the two food simulants are mainly polymer oligomers.It is found that quantitative analysis of oligomers migrants are higher levels in 50% ethanol.The plastic teabags were subjected to in vitro digestion in the gastrointestinal environment,and oligomers were detected in all three kinds of teabag digestion solutions.To explore the change trend of oligomers content with time in in-vitro digestion,it was found that the content of PET oligomer showed an upward trend,PA and PLA partial oligomer content were increased,but most of the higher molecular weight oligomers showed a decreasing trend.Scanning electron microscopy(SEM)was used to evaluate the migration level of microplastics when the plastic teabags were brewed tea.Microplastics can be produced of three teabag materials in one brew.Exposure to substances of high concern was assessed using the Threshold of Toxicological Concern(TTC)method,and the results indicated that the exposure of PA oligomers exceeded its safe threshold and may have an impact on consumer health.(2)Comprehensive screening of small molecule potential migrants extracted by dissolution precipitation in r PET full-chain samples(fragments,pellets,preforms,bottles)and different chain samples by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS.46 compounds including PET oligomers,amide lubricants and surfactants were screened out.The source of the surfactant found in the r PET fragments sample was traced to confirm that it came from the residual cleaning solution during the r PET recycling and cleaning process.Quantitative analysis of the high concern substances in the potential migration of the whole chain sample,the results show that the recycling process leads to an increase in the content of PET oligomers and amide lubricants,and the highest content of oligomers detected in the final product r PET bottle is 370.3781 mg/ kg.Conduct migration experiments on r PET bottles through EU No 10/2011 and GB31604.1-2015 regulations,analyze migrants by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS,and evaluate the exposure of migratory substances in combination with TTC method,and found that no PET oligomer exposure exceeds safety threshold,the need for subsequent toxicological attention is low.(3)Extraction and analysis of volatile potential migrants in white,natural color,and color printed paper straws by headspace solid-phase microextraction(SPME)/GC-MS.Screened out 96 migratory substances including solvent residues,adhesives,mineral oils,natural products,etc.According to the migration conditions of EU No 10/2011 and GB31604.1-2015 regulations,50% ethanol(v/v),10% ethanol(v/v),3%acetic acid(w/v)were selected as food simulants,combined with UPLCQ-TOF-MS screening of difficult-volatile migrants in white,natural color,and color printed paper straws.61 kinds of non-volatile migrants such as adhesives,plasticizers and film-forming agents were identified,among which 7 kinds of related substances introduced by ink printing were found in the migration of color printed paper straws.In vitro oral digestion of paper straws showed that no new migrants were produced under the digestion conditions.Toxtree software and T.E.S.T software were used to evaluate the toxicity of 155 volatile and non-volatile migrants,and 44 kinds of Cramer III migrants were screened out,witch included photoinitiators,were only detected in color printed paper straws.Results indicated that choosing colored paper straws may bring more health risks to consumers.