The Analysis of Organic Contaminants in Printing Paper Food Packaging Materials

A survey of 13 printed paper materials intend for food contact and 1 hand sheet sample made of wood pulp in laboratory has been undertaken. Extracted with hexane by Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE) with sequential analysis by Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrum (GC-MS) to identify organic compounds in the samples. It shows that there are a mount of organic contaminants, such as alkanes, alkylbenzenes, esters, especially the phthalates, phenols antioxidant, ketones, alcohols, naphthalene, alkenes and so on. In this paper, kinds of compounds with a potential to migrate to foods were quantified, such as Dibutylphthalate (DBP), 1, 2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid-bis (2-methylpropyl) ester (DiBP), Di-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate (DEHP), 1, 2-diethyl- Benzene and so on. For comparative purpose, 4 corresponding blank samples which were not printed were analyzed as described above. Results show that contents of selected compounds in the printed ones are higher than the blank ones. Therefore, 8 types of printing inks which used for the printed samples above were tested to make sure the main sources of these compounds. It demonstrates that printing inks are the main sources of the selected compounds that may cause risk to the food safety. Consequently, controlling the quality of printing inks is the best way to ensure the security of paper food packaging materials and the consumers' health.