Validation Study on Migration Test for Plastic Food Utensils, Containers, and Packaging

Abstract

Migration test of food utensils, containers, and packaging is an important test method for confirming the safety and their compliance to the standards. However, there is little report on inter-laboratory study which was performed to evaluate the entire migration test, including migration operations and quantification. An interlaboratory study was performed participating 22 laboratories using 8 types of model synthetic resin samples containing 10 substances with a wide range of Log Pow values to evaluate the accuracy of the entire migration test. As a result, most of HorRat (r) values met the target criteria (0.3<HorRat (r) ≦1.3), but many of HorRat (R) values exceed the target criteria (0.5<HorRat (R) ≦2.0). The results showed good accuracy within the laboratory. However, we found that there was a problem in accuracy between laboratories. The main reason was considered to be the difference in the preparation of migration solution between the laboratories, such as temperature and time control during the migration operation.