Benzophenone is one of the most commonly used photoinitiators, which are mostly used in UV-cured inks for which drying times are much shorter than for conventional solvent or water-based coatings. Benzophenone levels were determined in different packaging materials used for cakes, to evaluate the safety of printed paperboard intended for food contact. For this, a simple extraction method and a rapid specific reverse-phase high performance chromatography method with UV detection were developed. Benzophenone was quantified in different samples by a rapid specific reverse-phase high performance chromatography method after extraction with acetonitrile at 70 °C for 24 h. A novel method for testing benzophenone diffusion towards plastics was also developed and different experiments were conducted in order to measure diffusion coefficients at 70 °C for 2 days and at 40 °C for 10 days. Polypropylene plastics sleeves were found not to be an effective barrier against benzophenone diffusion (3,800 µg/g of benzhophenone was found after 48 h at 70 °C in cakes protected with this film) whereas, the corresponding value in cakes wrapped with a multilayer film of PP/EVOH/PP was reduced to 1,400 µg/g, and the concentration of benzophenone in cakes wrapped with a multilayer film of PET/SiOx/PE was negligible.

PASTORELLI Sarah;  SANCHEZ SILVA A.;  CRUZ J.M.;  SIMONEAU Catherine;  PASEIRO-LOSADA P.; 

2008-11-06

SPRINGER

JRC46053

1438-2377,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC46053,   

10.1007/s00217-008-0882-2,