Determination of Dihydroxybenzenes in Plastic Food Packaging Materials and in Food Simulating Liquids Using Capillary Electrophoresis

✍ Scribed by Abrantes, Shirley ;Philo, Mark R. ;Damant, Andrew P. ;Castle, Laurence

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 44 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0935-6304
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1521-4168(19990101)22:1<39::aid-jhrc39>3.0.co;2-s

✦ Synopsis

A capillary electrophoresis method has been developed to determine 1,2-dihydroxybenzene and 1,3-dihydroxybenzene in the food simulants distilled water, 3% acetic acid, 15% ethanol, and olive oil. Both substances, used as monomers and additives to make food packaging plastics, could be analyzed within 15 min. The 1,4-dihydroxybenzene isomer was unretained and eluted with the electroosmotic flow, and so the CE method can give only a semi-quantitative estimate of this isomer if it is present as a migrant. The analytical recovery for the 1,2-and 1,3-isomers from spiked simulants was good at 87% to 98% except for 1,2-dihydroxybenzene which could only be recovered to the extent of 58% from olive oil. Calibration graphs were linear and the limit of detection for each substance was 0.6 mg/kg, which is well below migration limits for these substances. It is concluded that CE offers a rapid and reliable analysis for the control of migration from plastics intended for food contact which employ 1,2-dihydroxybenzene or 1,3-dihydroxybenzene during manufacture, and offers a screening method for 1,4-dihydroxybenzene migration.