 |
| Title: | Phthalates in plastics and their migration into foodstuffs and food simulants | | Type: | Project | | Partners: | | | Abstract | Phthalates are high volume chemicals used in many technical applications, including certain food contact materials. With a few exceptions, phthalates have today been substituted with other plasticizers in such materials. However, processing equipment used in the food industry, such as plasticized tubing, gaskets and gloves, is a potential source of food contamination. More diffuse sources to contamination are atmospheric deposition of phthalates on crops and their release from vinyl floorings in industry and private homes.
The aims of the project are to use newly developed analytical GC-MS-based methods capable of determining selected phthalates reliably, even at low concentrations in plastics, in food simulants and in selected foodstuffs. The methods are currently used in the enforcement of the rather new more restrictive EU regulation (into force from June 2008). Further analysis of selected foodstuffs will possibly take place in 2010 with the purpose of improving current estimates of human exposure to phthalates |
|
|