Assessment of specific migration to aqueous simulants of a new active food packaging containing essential oils by means of an automatic multiple dynamic hollow fibre liquid phase microextraction system.

The determination of specific migration in the three aqueous food simulants (water, 3% acetic acid and 10% ethanol) from experimental active packaging polypropylene-based films containing natural essential oils as active agents has been carried out for the first time by a two-phase hollow fibre liquid phase microextraction (HFLPME). Due to the high number of variables involved, an experimental design has been applied. High throughput, with six samples running simultaneously in a highly automated system working in dynamic extraction mode, has been achieved. The main analytical characteristics are detection limits as low as 0.01 microg kg(-1), linearity higher than 0.99 for almost 5 magnitude orders, average precision below 16% as RSD and concentration factors ranging from 4 to 189. Migration of 43 compounds including terpenes, alkanes, plastic additives and degradation compounds is reported. According to the results obtained and European legislation, the packaging prototypes tested could be safely marketed.