A Systematic Study on the Stability of Selected Polymer Antioxidants in EU Official Aqueous and Alternative Food Simulants Using HPLC

In the work presented a systematic study has been undertaken on the stability of five selected commercial plastics additives in the three EU-official aqueous food simulants and in an alternative fat simulant under two different time/temperature exposure conditions. To enable quantitative analysis of the additives for this investigation, a simple and rapid HPLC method with UV detection was developed. The results obtained showed that the four Irganox-type additives under investigation were practically stable under the applied exposure conditions in all of the employed food simulants. Only Irganox 3114 exhibited a relatively low degree of instability in the ethanolic food simulants. Concerning Irgafos P-EPQ, a mixture of at least seven constituents, a remarkable degradation in ethanol and acetic acid solutions was observed.