Formaldehyde migration in aqueous extracts from paper and cardboard food packaging materials in Turkey

Abstract

Migration of formaldehyde to aqueous extracts from paper and cardboard food packaging materials was determined by an ultraviolet visible-spectrophotometric method at 410 nm. Intraday and interday precision of the method, expressed as coefficient of variation, varied between 1.5 to 4.4% and 7 to 8.8%, respectively. The limit of quantification was 0.28 mg kg⁻¹ for formaldehyde in aqueous extracts. The recovery of the method was over 90% for two different concentration levels in aqueous extracts. The method was applied to the migration of formaldehyde to aqueous extracts from 31 different paper and cardboard materials collected from the packaging sector, intended for food contact, such as tea filters, hot water filters, paper pouches and folding boxes. The results were between limit of detection 0.23 mg/kg and 40 mg kg⁻¹ and were evaluated according to the relevant directives.

Keywords:

• paper
• cardboard
• food packaging material
• formaldehyde migration
• aqueous extract
• spectrophotometry

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge Yunus Kurtoğlu and Vedat Yalçınkaya for technical assistance.