The behaviour of Tenax as food simulant in the migration of polymer additives from food contact materials by means of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and PARAFAC

The migration of benzophenone (BP), an antioxidant (2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methyl-phenol (BHT)) and three plasticizers (diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), bis(2-ethylhexyl) adipate (DEHA) and diisononyl phthalate (DiNP)) from different food contact materials into Tenax as food simulant was studied. The packaging materials analysed were: polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cling-films, paper bread bag, brown paper popcorn bag intended to be heated in a microwave oven and polypropylene (PP) coffee capsules. The analysis was carried out using PARAFAC and PARAFAC2 decompositions and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), being DiBP-d4 the internal standard. Tenax has been used as food simulant for specific migration of dry foodstuffs according to Commission Regulation (EU) 10/2011. PARAFAC and PARAFAC2 decompositions enabled the unequivocal identification and quantification of all the analytes despite some of the m/z ratios of the coeluting interferents were shared with the analytes. Otherwise, the presence of the analytes could not have been ensured according to the EU legislation in force. BHT, DiBP and DEHA were contained in the Tenax blanks in some of the analyses. The amount of BP and DiBP migrated from the PVC film was 83.53 μg L-1 and 31.30 μg L-1, respectively; whereas 71.62 μg L-1 of BP and 27.45 μg L-1 of DiBP migrated from the PP coffee capsules. None of the analytes were detected above the capability of detection in the non-spiked migration samples of the rest of the food contact materials analysed. The efficiency of Tenax as an adequate food simulant has also been studied through the values of its adsorption capability which were different depending on the analytes and the materials. In the spiked migration samples, these values ranged from 25.33% to 99.37%.