Identification of Intentionally and Non-intentionally Added Substances in Recycled Plastic Packaging Materials

Intentionally added substances (IAS) and non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) play an important role in food contact materials. Even though food packaging is being used to ensure the quality and safety of food, chemicals may be transferred to food. This aspect is more critical for recycled polymers destined to contact with food. The presence of contaminants associated with the high shear rates and temperatures characteristics of the recycling process results in new molecules with low molar mass. These have a greater migration potential contaminating the food and constitute a risk to consumers. Despite the importance of NIAS and IAS, there are significant difficulties in their identification and quantification due to the confidential composition of the polymers, the complexity of the chemical structure, and unequivocal confirmation analytes. Therefore, this chapter addresses an overview of the challenge of NIAS and IAS determination, as well as the most modern analytical methods for determination and quantification in complex polymeric matrix. Moreover, the usage of analytical techniques has been shown in the context of direct analysis of recycled polymer surface, the importance of odorous research, and samples from migration assays (volatile and non-volatile IAS and NIAS). Therefore, techniques such as SERS, ASAP, HS-SPME-GC-O-MS, DI-GC-MS, SPME-GC-MS, GC-FID, APGC-Q-TOF-MSE, UPLC-Q-TOF-MSE, UPLC-QqQ-MS, LTQ-Orbitrap, and UPLC-IM-Q-TOF have been discussed, and examples of analysis of real IAS and NIAS in the complex matrix have been added. Finally, the application of European legislation and risk assessment have also been discussed.