Additives in Polymer Formulations: Analysis by Chromatographic Techniques.

ROXANA A. RUSECKAITE, ALFONSO JIMENEZ

Encyclopedia of Chromatography, 3rd Edition

Taylor & Francis

Año: 2009;

Identification and eventual determination of polymer additives is an important issue in many fields, mainly in the area of packaging materials where additive migration from food contact materials may have potential toxic effects in humans. In biomedical applications, plasticizers present in the polymer (e.g. diethyl phthalate (DEHP) in PVC), will readily leach into the liquids passing through it, particularly for lipid-containing fluids, e.g. blood. There is a great concern about the toxicity of DEHP. International regulations require that pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetic and packaging materials should not interact physically or chemically with their contents or environments. Therefore, the possible release of the polymer additives by the plastic containers should be monitored, controlled and minimized. Chromatographic techniques, either by their own or hyphenated to powerful analytical detection techniques have shown a great potential to determine and eventually identify many of these compounds. As it was pointed out above, it is evident that new reliable and rapid analysis method of polymer additives is a challenging task for several reasons, comprising: quality control; additive depletion/stability during processing and lifetime; litigation; migration studies; contamination; government regulations; and development of new materials.