New UPLC coupled to mass spectrometry approaches for screening of non-volatile compounds as potential migrants from adhesives used in food packaging materials

Abstract The objective of this study was to identify the non-volatile compounds as potential migrants from adhesives used in food packaging. A number of the current acrylic adhesive formulations were extracted and prepared for analysis. The extracts were screened using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled to a time-of-flight mass spectrometer detector (UPLC–TOF-MS). This approach allowed the identification of several components by a combination of exact mass and in-source collision induced dissociation (CID). Due to the lack of freely available information on adhesive formulations further analyses were undertaken using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled to high definition mass spectrometry (UPLC–HDMS). Using the MassFragment™ tool to interrogate fragmentation data, a wide series of compounds were identified, demonstrating the usefulness and importance of these tools for difficult problems. Moreover, using several packaging materials containing adhesives, qualitative migration tests were performed with Tenax ® as a food simulant. Several non-volatile compounds were identified as well in the Tenax ® which emphasizes the importance of this work and demonstrates that even the non-volatile compounds have the potential to migrate into food which is in contact with packaging materials. The main characteristics of the screening study and the results obtained are shown and discussed.