ε-Caprolactam migration from polyamide 6 packaging into 3% acetic acid food simulant and validation of the analytical method

The aim of this work was to develop and validate an analytical method to determine epsilon-caprolactam in 3% acetic acid solution and to study its migration from polyamide 6 into food simulant. Gas chromatography was used with epsilon-caprolactam as an analytical standard and 2-azacyclononanone as an internal standard. The linearity was obtained by the concentration range of 1.60 to 640.00 mu g.mL(-1), with a correlation coefficient of 0.9999. Detection and quantification limits of the method were 0.24 ng and 1.60 ng, respectively Relative standard deviations obtained for method precision were less than 4.3%, while method accuracy showed recovery between 100 and 106%. The method was able to quantify epsilon-caprolactam in the simulant, showing a wide linearity, good precision and accuracy. For the migration assay, polyamide 6 films were placed in glass vials containing 10 mL of simulant, which were hermetically capped and exposed at 40 degrees C for 10 days (total immersion). The amount of c-caprolactam that migrated from packaging into the simulant varied from 7.8 to 10.5 and 6.9 to 7.6 mg.Kg(-1), for films used as meat products and cheese packaging, respectively