Assessment of estrogenic compounds in paperboard for dry food packaging with the ERE-CALUX bioassay.

Paperboard used as packaging, a non-inert material, can transfer chemicals into food. Over the years, endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), such as NonylPhenols (NPs), BisPhenol A (BPA) and phthalates have been shown to migrate from packaging materials into food. Due to chronic exposure and mixture effects of these EDCs, they could cause health effects even at very low doses. Many EDCs are still unknown and many more are still unregulated. The ERE-CALUX bioassay was used as a bioanalytical tool to investigate estrogenic activities of paperboard food packaging and its characteristics, including recycling rate and printing ink. A "worst case" scenario with full extraction is compared to a dry food migration experiment. By measuring an overall estrogenic activity, known and unknown estrogenic chemicals and mixture effects are taken into account and the data are compared to molecule specific analysis. Estrogenic activities ranged from 682 ±â€¯66 pg E2 eq./dm2 to 3250 ±â€¯400 pg E2 eq./dm2 for "worst case" extraction and from 347 ±â€¯30 pg E2 eq./dm2 to 1350 ±â€¯70 pg E2 eq./dm2 for migration experiments. A two-factor ANOVA revealed a relationship between estrogenic activity and the recycling rate of the paperboard, but no significant difference with printing ink was observed for these paperboard samples. Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) and 1,2-cyclohexane dicarboxylic acid diisononyl ester (DINCH) were determined in all extraction and migrations experiment samples. A Spearman rank correlation analysis showed a relationship between the estrogenic activity and the total phthalates as well as with each compound individually.

Use of Tenax® films to demonstrate the migration of chemical contaminants from cardboard into dry food.

Contaminants in food packaging are a challenge of our time since the packaging material itself has been found to represent a source of food contamination through the migration of substances from it. Before first use, packaging materials destined for the packaging of dry foods can be evaluated by performing migration experiments with the simulant for dry foods, Tenax®. This simulant is commercially available as a powder that is more difficult to handle during the migration experiments. This paper reports the development of a Tenax film. The film can be applied to the cardboard surface to conduct the migration test. After the migration is completed, the film can be easily extracted to determine the concentration of the contaminants in the film. Finally, the performance of the Tenax film was compared with the conventional Tenax powder for the evaluation of 15 model migrants.

Evaluation of the migration of 15 photo-initiators from cardboard packaging into Tenax(®) using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS).

Photo-initiators are widely used to cure ink on packaging materials used in food applications such as plastic films or cartonboards. In migration studies, food simulants are very often used to simulate food, like Tenax(®), which is the simulant for dry foodstuffs. In this paper a fast and reliable confirmation method for the determination of the following photo-initiators in Tenax(®) is described: benzophenone (BP), 4,4'-bis(diethylamino)benzophenone (DEAB), 2-chloro-9H-thioxanthen-9-one (CTX), 1-chloro-4-propoxy-9H-thioxanthen-9-one (CPTX), 2,4-diethyl-9H-thioxanthen-9-one (DETX), 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenyl acetophenone (DMPA), 4-(dimethylamino)benzophenone (DMBP), 2-ethylanthraquinone (EA), ethyl-4-dimethylaminobenzoate (EDMAB), 1-hydroxylcyclohexyl phenyl ketone (HCPK), 2-hydroxy-4'-(2-hydroxyethoxy)-2-methylpropiophenone (HMMP), 2-isopropyl-9H-thioxanthen-9-one (ITX), 4-methylbenzophenone (MBP), Michler's ketone (MK), and 4-phenylbenzophenone (PBZ). After the migration study was completed, the simulant Tenax(®) was extracted using acetonitrile, followed by analysis on ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). Quantification was carried out using benzophenone-d10 (BP-d10) as internal standard. The presented method is validated in terms of matrix effect, specificity, linearity, recovery, precision and sensitivity, showing the method can detect all photo-initiators at very low concentrations (LOD < 0.125 µg g(-1) for all substances). Finally, the procedure was applied to real samples, proving the capabilities of the presented method.