The Extraction of Antioxidants from Food Packaging Film

Introduction

Polymer materials are commonly found in our day-to-day products. Consumers interact with them quite often, from car parts, to children’s toys, to food packaging. Many foods purchased in the grocery store are wrapped in some sort of plastic material. For food packaging, additives, such as antioxidants, are often added to help maintain their integrity and stability. However, with exposure to heat and over time, these additives can leach out of the materials and into food. Thus, accurate methods for assessing levels of antioxidants in food packaging is important.

In this work, three CEM products, the MARS 6 microwave system, the Discover Prep microwave system, and the EDGE automated extraction system, were used to extract two antioxidants, Irganox 1076 and Irganox 1010, from food film packaging provided by a local manufacturer. The MARS 6 extraction methodology has long been known as a valid extraction technique, starting with soils almost 30 years ago. Extraction applications have grown to many other areas, including plastics, and it is regarded as a method producing 100% recovery. The MARS 6 and the Discover Prep incorporate microwaves into their extraction, while the EDGE utilizes a pressurized system. The results from the Discover Prep and EDGE extractions were compared to the MARS 6 results, and it was found that the other two CEM instrument choices produced similar results with low standard deviations. Thus, CEM provides three excellent choices for the extraction of antioxidants from polymers.