Identification of potential migrants in epoxy phenolic can coatings

A test protocol has been developed that contains a suite of complementary analytical methods to identify and estimate the concentrations of potential chemical migrants in polymeric coatings applied to metal substrates. The capabilities of these techniques (FT-IR, overall migration, headspace GC-MS, GC-MS, and LC-TOF-MS) have been tested for a variety of polymeric coatings, and the results for one particular coating, an epoxy phenolic, are described as an example. The example provided shows both the power and the limitations of current analytical techniques in the evaluation of the total migrate from food contact materials.