Food Additives & Contaminants 2003-04-01

Development and validation of analytical methods for monomeric and oligomeric migrants from nylon 12 packaging materials.

N H Stoffers, F Brandl, J P H Linssen, R Franz

Index: Food Addit. Contam. 20(4) , 410-6, (2003)

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Abstract

Analytical methods for the determination of laurolactam--the monomer of nylon 12--as well as the cyclic dimer and trimer were established. High performance liquid chromatography using ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) and mass spectrometric detection (HPLC-MS) were both found suitable to identify and quantify monomer, cyclic dimer and trimer well below the specific migration limit (SML) of laurolactam, being 5 mg/kg of food (simulant). Gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection (GC-FID) showed to be an appropriate method for the detection of only laurolactam in aqueous and fatty food simulants. Food simulants could be analysed directly by all three methods, or after a change of solvents. For olive oil, a method for sample clean-up by size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) was established.