Development of a reliable extraction method for the identification and quantification of 7 plasticizers in recycled paperboard materials intended for food contact applications

Abstract

Increasingly, more studies are re-examining widely used chemicals, previously regarded as safe, concerning their potential effect on human health. One such chemical group is plasticizers, commonly known as “everywhere chemicals”. Plasticizers today, like other industrial innovations of the past, are associated with various health concerns. Therefore, guidelines are enforced worldwide through national and international restrictions to limit their use. The purpose of this work is to endorse the use of recycled materials in food packaging, albeit without compromising the safety of the content. To this end, this study attempts to develop a fast, simple, and reliable extraction method for the identification and quantification of low concentrations of these types of chemicals in recycled paperboard materials intended for food contact applications. Three extraction methods were studied and put under evaluation regarding their effectiveness and accuracy in isolating a mixture of 7 plasticizers in samples of recycled paperboard: the Soxtec Extraction (SE), the Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction (UAE), and the Head Space Solid Phase Micro Extraction (HS-SPME). A Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis was conducted following the extractions to determine the contaminants. The paperboard samples were additionally spiked with the said mixture and subjected to migration experiments using Tenax (dry-food simulant). According to the results, HS-SMPE displayed excellent quantification performance since all 7 compounds were determined with the highest accuracy. Furthermore, both the relative standard deviation (RSD) and the Horwitz ratio (HorRat) values attested that HS-SPME is the best method for extracting the plasticizers out of the three tested.