Abstract.
The need of and opportunities for recycling of plastics for food packaging have been recognized, and a lot of work to find meaningful and cost-effective solutions to this issue is in progress. The safety of recycled plastics for food contact use is largely dictated by the ability of post-consumer contaminants to absorb into recycled materials and later diffuse from recycled plastics into the food. The objective of the present study was to establish a suitable analytical approach to identifying and quantifying any chemical substances that derive from the earlier use and remain in the polyethylene terephthalate (PET). A simple gas chromatographic technique using flame ionization detection was developed to allow quantification of solvent extractable compounds in a series of recycled PET samples. Identification of the nature and extent of contaminants in the PET samples was also attempted using GC/MS analysis.
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Triantafyllou, V.I., Karamani, A.G., Akrida-Demertzi, K. et al. Studies on the usability of recycled PET for food packaging applications. Eur Food Res Technol 215, 243–248 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-002-0559-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-002-0559-1