APPLICATION OF CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS IN MIGRATION STUDIES OF FOODCONTACT MATERIALS .1. SUBSTITUTED PHENOLIC ADDITIVES

A method has been developed to determine 11 phenolic antioxidants in t he food simulants distilled water, 3% acetic acid. and 15% ethanol, us ing micellar capillary electrophoresis (MCE). All the phenols could be analyzed within 35 min, The analytical recovery from spiked simulants was 80 to 119% except for 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4hydroxytoluene (BHT) and octyl gallate, which could not be recovered from 3% acetic acid simul ant, Calibration graph correlation coefficients for the 11 phenols wer e 0.982 to 0.999, Limits of detection (LoDs) were from 2.8 to 8.6 mg/L . These LoDs are well below European Union migration limits for these substances. It is concluded therefore that MCE offers a rapid and reli able analysis for the control of migration from plastics intended for food contact which employ these phenols as antioxidants.