A Novel Approach for Identifying Potential Interactions between Alcoholic Beverages and their Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Packaging Materials

This paper attempts to present a novel approach that may prove useful in determining whether or not any interactions, particularly the levigation of some additives/compounds contained in the PET packaging materials into the alcoholic beverages occurs. The method consists in comparing the peak area resulting from HPLC analysis of a sample taken from an original PET bottle with that of the very same product sample taken from a glass bottle, both bottles having being stored in the original and glass bottles for a certain determined period of time. Should the case arises when the peaks overlay within the experimental errors, one may say that no interaction occurred and the package is very stable. However, if there is a significant difference in the peak area, particularly in the favour of the content stored in the PET bottle, than there is definitely the case of a levigation process from the packaging material into the alcoholic beverage.