Determination of potential migrants from commercial amber polyethylene terephthalate bottle wall

Potential migrants were isolated from commercial polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles using Soxhlet extraction. The concentrated extract was then subjected to GC/MS analysis. A total of 19 migrants has been identified. The majority of compounds appeared to be intermediate reaction products or residual monomers of their dehydration and transesterification products. Several processing aids such as fatty acids and commonly used plasticizers were also identified. The amount of seven compounds present in the major portion of exhaustive extract of the PET bottle wall ranged from 800 micrograms/g polymer to as low as 0.6 microgram/g.