Development of analysis method for determination of mineral oil contamination in cardboard

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Since mineral oil contamination from food packaging to food has become a public health concern, several laboratories are investigating possibilities to develop a simply and affordable analytical method for measuring mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) and mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) in cardboard. The present study investigated on the behalf of Metsä Board Oy (Finland) an efficient analytical method for the determination of mineral oil in cardboard by using cardboard extraction (sample separation), a solid phase extraction (SPE) process (purification) and gas chromatography-flame ionization (GC-FID) (mineral oil quantitation). Also, mass spectrometry (MS) was used for the identification of MOSH and MOAH components. In general a simple test which is easy to carry out on-site is needed to comply with safety regulations in packaging products. We found out that when used a glass column with a 10 mm inner diameter and filled with activated silver silica gel (containing 0.3 % AgNO3) as a sorbent bed for the SPE process, the MOSH fraction was eluted with 13 mL of n-hexane. The MOAH fraction was eluted with 15 mL of solvent mixture of 70 % dichloromethane (DCM), 25 % n-hexane. 5 % toluene and gravitational elution to control the elution speed provided the best results. In this study, it was suggested that the amount of solvent used during the SPE process will gain intensive attention since the handling and evaporation of it is time consuming.