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. 2019 Oct 7;24(19):3607.
doi: 10.3390/molecules24193607.

Migration Studies of Two Common Components of UV-curing Inks into Food Simulants

Miguel A Lago  1 , Raquel Sendón  2 , Juana Bustos  3 , María T Nieto  4 , Perfecto Paseiro Losada  5 , Ana Rodríguez-Bernaldo de Quirós  6
Affiliations

Migration Studies of Two Common Components of UV-curing Inks into Food Simulants

Miguel A Lago et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) has reported many cases of different UV curing inks components in foodstuffs during the last few years. These contaminants reach foodstuffs mainly by set-off, their principal migration mechanism from the package. Under this premise, this work has tried to characterize the process of migration of two common UV ink components: a photoinitiator (4-Methylbenzophenone) and a coinitiator (Ethyl-4-(dimethylamino) benzoate), from the most common plastic material used in food packaging low-density polyethylene (LDPE) into six different food simulants. The migration kinetics tests were performed at four different common storage temperatures, obtaining the key migration parameters for both molecules: the coefficients of diffusion and partition. The migration process was highly dependent on the storage conditions, the photoinitiator properties and the pH of the foodstuff.

Keywords: 4-methylbenzophenone; diffusion coefficient; ethyl-4-(dimethylamino) benzoate; migration; partition coefficient.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Migration of 4-methyl benzophenone (4-MBP) and ethyl-4-(dimethylamino) benzoate (EDB) at −18 °C. Co: Initial concentration; Ct: concentration at time t; (b) EDB 95% EtOH (v/v) (−18 °C); (c) 4-MBP 95% EtOH (v/v) (−18 °C).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relation between the 4-methyl benzophenone (4-MBP) diffusion coefficient (DP) and the percentage of ethanol of the food simulant.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Application of the Arrhenius equation to estimate the relation between the obtained DP for ethyl-4-(dimethylamino) benzoate (EDB) and 4-methyl benzophenone (4-MBP) and the temperature. Dotted lines extrapolate the linearity estimated in the range 4–40 °C down to −18 °C
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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