Medical Hydrology and Balneology: Environmental Aspects

Migration assays for the identification of
organic compounds in natural mineral water
containers
Borrell A (1) , Guart A (1) , Lacorte S (2)
(1) Laboratorio Dr. Oliver Rodés, S.A. El Prat de Llobregat. Barcelona, Spain
(2) Department of Environmental Chemistry, IDAEA_CSIC. Barcelona, Spain
aba@oliver-rodes.com
Introduction and Objectives
Natural Mineral Waters are natural products, which have to maintain their original
purity of the source. The protection perimeter has to be adequate to avoid a
possible source contamination.
Once the water has been bottled, the container has to be as inert as possible. European
Regulation 10/2011 establishes the migration conditions for polymeric
materials which have to be in contact with food.
Previously, we have investigated the presence of different organic compounds,
such as Bisphenol A (BPA) or Nonylphenol in plastics in contact with water (Guart
et al., 2011). We have demonstrated the migration of BPA from polycarbonate
containers.
BPA has been banned recently in material in contact to baby food. And a possible
future French Decree could ban the use of BPA for materials in contact with
food. So companies are studying possible polycarbonate substitutes.
Materials and Methods
Migration assays have been performed according to the Regulation 10/2011 and
Spanish Royal Decree 866/2008, using solid phase extraction (SPE) followed by
gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
Results
In this work, we show the possible migration of organic compounds of a substitute
free BPA container, made in the copolyester Tritan. Tritan was introduced in
2007 as a polymer produced from dimethyl terephtalate, 1,4cyclohexanedimethanol
and 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclobutanediol.
Conclusions
The results obtained after incubating the plastic at 40ºC during 10 days show
that Tritan is a polymeric material with low migration potential of plasticisers and
additives.
Balnea
2012, núm. 6, 216-217
216
ISBN: 978-84-669-1887-0
978-84-669-3482-4