Characterizing Food Packaging Materials
(Photo Credit: Jamie Grill/Getty Images)
A group of scientists from the University of Parma in Italy, has performed capillary ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography and electrospray ionization quadrupole orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC–ESI Q-orbitrap–HRMS) to characterize materials used in food packaging and that consequently come into contact with food, namely polycarbonate food-contact plastics.1
Materials that come into contact with foods can be constructed from a wide range of materials like plastics, paper, metal, and rubber, all of which are a potential source of contamination. It is important that these materials are characterized to ensure that any risk to health is identified. Regulations are in place in many countries to ensure that food for human consumption is safe. Molecules that are searched for include non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) (chemical compounds that are present in a material but have not been added for a technical reason during production), residual monomers, degradation products, plastic additives, and organic colourants.
The authors employed capillary UHPLC–ESI Q-orbitrap–HRMS to characterize the polycarbonate that had been used as a food contact material. Targeted and untargeted analysis for data-dependent experiments were both employed after the polycarbonate samples had been reduced down to their constituent parts. The presence of common additives such as antioxidants and UV absorbers was confirmed by targeted analysis, while an untargeted approach allowed some polycarbonate degradation products and the organic dyes used for the colouration of plastic materials intended to come into contact with food to be identified. This was the first time that the organic colour dyes of a food plastic material were identified.
The authors concluded that this technique has potential in the field of material characterization for food safety assessment. - K.M.
Reference
1. C. Bignardi, A. Cavazza, C. Corradini, and P. Salvadeo, Journal of Chromatography A 1372, 133–144 (2014).
AI and GenAI Applications to Help Optimize Purification and Yield of Antibodies From Plasma
October 31st 2024Deriving antibodies from plasma products involves several steps, typically starting from the collection of plasma and ending with the purification of the desired antibodies. These are: plasma collection; plasma pooling; fractionation; antibody purification; concentration and formulation; quality control; and packaging and storage. This process results in a purified antibody product that can be used for therapeutic purposes, diagnostic tests, or research. Each step is critical to ensure the safety, efficacy, and quality of the final product. Applications of AI/GenAI in many of these steps can significantly help in the optimization of purification and yield of the desired antibodies. Some specific use-cases are: selecting and optimizing plasma units for optimized plasma pooling; GenAI solution for enterprise search on internal knowledge portal; analysing and optimizing production batch profitability, inventory, yields; monitoring production batch key performance indicators for outlier identification; monitoring production equipment to predict maintenance events; and reducing quality control laboratory testing turnaround time.
Infographic: Be confidently audit ready, at any time and reduce failures in pharma QC testing
November 20th 2024Discover how you can simplify the audit preparation process with data integrity dashboards that provide transparency to key actions, and seamlessly track long-term trends and patterns, helping to prevent system suitability failures before they occur with waters_connect Data Intelligence software.
