Determination of Some Element’s Migrants in Aqueous Simulant from Plastic Food Contact Products by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer

Various chemicals present at different stages in the food supply chain can lead to the leaching of heavy metals. These metals can accumulate in the human body through the consumption of contaminated food. Consequently, it is necessary to validate an analytical technique for the quantification chemical that could contaminate food. This study presents a rapid, straightforward, and efficient analytical method for the direct quantification of some potentially toxic elements in aqueous simulants from plastic food contact products using an inductively coupled mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The method’s validation encompassed the study of the estimated detection limits, practical quantification limits, linearity, accuracy, and measurement uncertainty of aluminium (Al), antimony (Sb), arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), and zinc (Zn) under optimized ICP-MS conditions. The estimated detection limits ranged from 7.5 × 10⁻⁴ to 0.074 mg/kg, while practical quantification limits spanned from 0.02 to 0.8 mg/kg. The average recoveries ± standard deviations at different spiking levels were varied between 85.7 ± 1.51 and 115.6 ± 0.88% with coefficients of variation between 0.42 and 5.85%. The method trueness was verified by using references materials (test material in aqueous acetic acid) purchased from Food Chemistry Proficiency Testing and Analysis (FAPAS) yielding satisfactory results within acceptable recovery and Z-score values. The method precision, in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD), was being below 4.22%. The method uncertainty expressed as expanded uncertainty of all validated elements was found to be ≤ 21.9%. Validated method was employed to determine specific elements in aqueous simulants of thirty commercial plastic food packaging samples, representing three distinct types of plastic polymers. The results showed that the mean concentrations, in mg/kg, were as follows: 2.04 (Al), 0.02 (As), 0.02 (Cd), 0.02 (Co), 0.06 (Cr), 0.41 (Cu), 1.55 (Fe), 0.09 (Mn), 0.15 (Ni), 0.07 (Pb), 0.05 (Sb), and 0.81 (Zn). Furthermore, 30% of analyzed samples exceeding the maximum permissible limits of Al for plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.