Food contact materials

Importance of the topic

Food contact materials must not transfer harmful chemicals or metals to foods or affect organoleptic properties. Regulatory frameworks worldwide (EU, USA, Japan, Council of Europe) set stringent requirements for approved substances and migration limits. Analytical chemistry plays a central role in verifying compliance, protecting public health, and guiding industry reforms following contamination incidents.

Aims and article overview

This article reviews regulations governing food contact materials, analytical strategies for identifying polymers and migrants, and key techniques for migration testing. It covers:

• Global regulatory schemes and alert systems
• Approaches to polymer identification
• Techniques for migrant extraction and analysis
• Non-targeted screening and emerging materials

Methodology and used instrumentation

• Polymer identification: FTIR microscopy and ATR-FTIR
• Rapid screening: DART-MS and DART-Orbitrap MS
• Extraction: Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE), Soxhlet, acid leaching
• Volatile analysis: Headspace GC, HS-SPME GC-MS
• Semi-volatile and additives: GC-FID, GC-MS, GC-Orbitrap MS
• Polar migrants: HPLC-UV/FLD, LC-MS/MS, LC-Orbitrap MS
• Multi-element leaching: AAS, ICP-MS, single particle ICP-MS
• Complex hydrocarbons: LC-GC-FID

Main results and discussion

• Regulatory frameworks differ: EU positive lists with specific migration limits (SML), USA FCN system with Threshold of Regulation, Japan moving toward positive lists.
• Council of Europe resolutions guide paper/board and inks; RASFF alerts highlight issues with melamine formaldehyde, primary aromatic amines, phthalates, metal leaching, mineral oil migration.
• FTIR reliably identifies polymer layers in laminates; DART-MS rapidly detects high-level additives; ASE yields quantitative extracts for LC/MS and GC/MS screening.
• Headspace GC-MS and GC-FID are effective for monomers and hydrocarbons; LC-MS/MS and LC-Orbitrap MS address polar migrants, NIAS characterization, and oligomer profiling.
• Modeling tools support migration prediction and reduce reliance on exhaustive tests; single particle ICP-MS quantifies engineered nanoparticles in packaging.

Benefits and practical applications

• Comprehensive testing ensures materials meet safety and quality standards.
• Rapid screening by DART and FTIR accelerates compliance checks and product development.
• Non‐targeted HRMS workflows uncover unknown contaminants and guide toxicological assessments.
• Migration modeling reduces laboratory workload by predicting worst-case exposures.
• Advanced nanoparticle detection safeguards emerging active and intelligent packaging.

Future trends and opportunities

• Expansion of non-targeted high-resolution screening to map NIAS profiles across material lifecycles.
• Integration of validated migration models into regulatory submissions.
• Development of harmonized methods for paper/board and printing ink migrants.
• Improved multi-element and nanoparticle detection in complex matrices.
• Adoption of active and intelligent packaging requiring new analytical paradigms.

Conclusion

A multi-disciplinary approach combining robust regulations, advanced extraction methods, targeted and non-targeted analytics, and predictive modeling is essential to ensure the safety of food contact materials. Continuous innovation in instrumentation and method development is required to address emerging materials, NIAS and nanotechnology applications.

Reference

• Barnes KA, Sinclair R, Watson DH. Chemical Migration and Food Contact Materials. Woodhead Publishing; 2007.
• Nerin C, et al. Identifying non-intentionally added substances from food packaging materials: A review. Anal Chim Acta. 2013;775:14–24.
• Paseiro-Cerrato R, et al. Rapid screening of primary aromatic amines in kitchen utensils using DART-MS. Food Addit Contam Part A. 2014;31:537–545.
• Sanchis-Villar R, et al. Organic food packaging contaminants: Analytical strategies. J Chromatogr A. 2017;1490:22–46.
• Lorenzini P, et al. Mineral oil hydrocarbons from paperboard packaging: Long-term migration. Food Addit Contam Part A. 2014;27:1765–1774.