Determination of partition behavior of organic surrogates between paperboard packaging materials and air

The suitability of recycled paperboard packaging materials for direct food contact applications is a major area of investigation. Chemical contaminants (surrogates) partitioning between recycled paper packaging and foods may affect the safety and health of the consumer. The partition behavior of all possible organic compounds between cardboards and individual foodstuffs is difficult and too time consuming for being fully investigated. Therefore it may be more efficient to determine these partition coefficients indirectly through experimental determination of the partitioning behavior between cardboard samples and air. In this work, the behavior of organic pollutants present in a set of two paper and board samples intended to be in contact with foods was studied. Adsorption isotherms have been plotted and partition coefficients between paper and air have been calculated as a basis for the estimation of their migration potential into food. Values of partition coefficients (Kpaper/air) from 47 to 1207 were obtained at different temperatures. For the less volatile surrogates such as dibutyl phthalate and methyl stearate higher Kpaper/air values were obtained. The adsorption curves showed that the more volatile substances are partitioning mainly in air phase and increasing the temperature from 70 to 100 degrees C their concentrations in air (Cair) have almost doubled. The analysis of surrogates was performed with a method based on solvent extraction and gas chromatographic-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) quantification.