Effect of Functional Barriers for Fatty and High Moisture Food Packages with Recycled Pulp

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An analytical procedure for quantifying five surrogate contaminants in paper were successfully developed and verified at spiking concentrations of 1-50ppm. The recoveries of the polar surrogates benzophenone and PCP were in the ranges of 88-97% and 95-105% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 3%, respectively. The recoveries of the nonpolar surrogates anthracene, methyl stearate, and dimethyl phthalate were in the ranges of 92-100, 87-94, and 91-101% with RSDs of 3%, respectively.</p>
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The results indicate that the procedure is effective and precise enough to extract and quantify the nonvolatile surrogates from the recycled paper, regardless of their polarity, and may be applicable to the determination of other contaminants in recycled paper/paperboard.</P>
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Analytical procedures for quantifying the surrogates in the FDA-suggested aqueous and fatty food simulating solvents were also successfully developed and verified at concentration levels of 1-1000 ppb. Recoveries of anthracene, methyl stearate, benzophenone,and PCP from 10% ethanol/water were in ranges of 71-95%, 80-93%, 81-106%,and 88-102% with RSDs of 2-4%, respectively. Recoveries of anthracene and benzophenone from 100% ethanol were in ranges of 81-94% and 82-95% with RSDs of 3%, respectively. Recoveries of methyl stearate and PCP from isopropanol were in ranges of 94-99% and 82-100% with RSDs of 3%, respectively.</P>
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Extraction experiments are in progress to measure concentrations of the residual contaminants migrating from a spiked paperboard into the food simulating system through polypropylene film barrier with thickness of 1-2 mil at worst scenario conditions (100oC, 2 hours, 50 ppm spiking level). The extraction data will be evaluated, based on 0.5 ppb threshold of regulation.</P>