Recyclates for Sustainable Food Contact Method Development for the Validation of Migration Barriers

Ideological changes in industrial approaches require greater ecological thinking. Regarding plastics, the integration of plastic waste into the circular economy arises from the urgent need to design and develop sustainable alternatives. The primary objective of a recycling process is to ensure that the quality of recycled plastics consistently matches that of the original product. Regional authorities and regulations require the assessment and prevention of the potential safety hazards of possible contaminants in recycling streams, recycling processes, and recycling technologies. The specific limits on migrating substances are difficult to achieve through recycling, especially in food packaging. Since food packaging accounts for the largest global share of plastic use, alternative approaches for assessing the value of recyclates as food contact materials need to be considered. One possible way to achieve this goal is barrier development via plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) to potentially prevent migration of contamination and barrier function as food contact materials. To efficiently evaluate migrations and barrier efficiencies, a novel contamination approach for virgin materials is introduced to simulate model recyclates. Achieving higher concentrations inside a virgin polypropylene matrix simplifies the analytical approaches. Further, an analysis chain regarding migration evaluation via gas chromatography coupled mass spectrometry and barrier developments are shown.