Determination of plastic additives in packaging by liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry

A simple and sensitive analytical method for the determination of several plastic additives in multilayer packaging based on solid-liquid extraction (SLE) and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to variable wavelength (VWD) and time of flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) detectors is presented. The proposed method allows the simultaneous determination of fourteen additives belonging to different families such as antioxidants, slip agents and light stabilizers, as well as two oxidation products in only 9min. The developed method was validated in terms of linearity, matrix effect error, detection and quantification limits, repeatability and intermediate precision. The instrumental method showed satisfactory repeatability and intermediate precision at concentrations closed to LOQ with RSDs less than 7 and 20%, respectively, and LODs until 5000 times more sensitive than other GC-FID and HPLC-VWD methods previously reported. Also, focused ultrasound solid-liquid extraction (FUSLE) was optimized and evaluated to extract plastic additives from packaging. Extraction results obtained by FUSLE and SLE were compared to those obtained by pressurized liquid extraction (PLE). All extraction methods showed excellent extraction efficiency for slip agents, however quantitative recovery of all analytes was achieved only by SLE with just 5ml of hexane for 10h. Finally, the selected method was applied to the analysis of packaging samples where erucamide, Irgafos 168, oxidized Irgafos 168, Irganox 1076 and Irganox 1010 were detected and quantified.