One-dimensional and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatographic approaches for the characterization of post-consumer recycled plastic materials

In September 2022, the European Commission published its new regulation on recycled plastic materials for food contact. It allows newly developed, non-authorized technologies and approaches, or so-called novel technologies, to be deployed in the field to generate the data needed for establishing regulatory and/or fit for purpose processes. The data shall be generated by using suitable methods, but the regulation does not give a more detailed description on those. In this study, commercially purchased buckets made of post-consumer recycled polypropylene were screened, using a number of different analytical approaches. Sample preparation methods, analysis techniques, and the data and information generated were compared. The results clearly demonstrate the need for a detailed characterization of such materials and the advantages and disadvantages of the analysis using conventional gas chromatography with flame ionization detection and mass spectrometery as well as two-dimensional comprehensive gas chromatography with time of flight mass spectrometry.

Automated summary

In September 2022, the European Commission released a new regulation allowing the use of novel technologies to generate data for establishing regulatory processes on recycled plastic materials for food contact. This study compared different analytical approaches for screening commercially purchased post-consumer recycled polypropylene buckets. The results highlight the importance of detailed characterization and the advantages and disadvantages of using conventional gas chromatography and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with mass spectrometry.