Comparison of migration from polyethersulphone baby bottles with that of polycarbonate baby bottles

Catherine Simoneau (1) , Sandro Valzacchi (1) , Vaidas Morkunas (1) , Liza van den Eede (1)

1 IHCP - JRC Institute for Health and Consumer Protection

This work presents two analytical methods developed for measuring three components of polyethersulphone (PES) and applying them to the migration testing of 30 baby bottles made of PES. The study also provides migration results under the same conditions for Bisphenol A (BPA) from 40 polycarbonate baby bottles using a well established method adapted to low concentrations. For PES bottles migration analysis of diphenyl sulphone (DPS), 4, 4'-dichlorodiphenyl sulphone (DCPS) and 4,4'-dihydroxydiphenyl sulphone (DHPS; also known as bisphenol S), was done using the two different analytical methods with detection limits around 0.1 - 0.3 µg/kg, and therefore much below their respective legislative limits of migration of 50-3000 µg/kg, respectively (EU, 2002). In parallel, 40 bottles made of polycarbonate were analysed for the migration of BPA using a method validated at EU level and modified to a lower detection limit of 0.1µg/kg. Migration tests were conducted into the simulant for milk 50% EtOH (EU, 2011) according to the test conditions from the guidelines on test conditions for articles in contact with foodstuffs (with a focus on kitchenware) prepared by the European Union Reference Laboratory and its Network of National Reference Laboratories. None of the 30 bottles made of PES released any detectable amounts of DCPS or DHPS and only 2 bottles released a very low amount of DPS of around 1 µg/kg in the milk food simulant compared to a limit of 3000 µg/kg. For PC bottles, 32 bottles out of 40 (80 %) did not release BPA beyond the LOD of 0.1 µg/kg (in any of the three migration tests performed on each bottle). The other 20 % of bottles exhibited only very minor migration, where the highest level in the first migration was of 1.83 µg/kg and most bottles did not release detectable BPA in the second and third round. Only one bottle with a migration level of 1.08 µg/kg in the first round still showed a detectable level in the last migration (i.e. 0.42 µg/kg). It is important to note that the legal limit was still 600 µg/kg for polycarbonate bottles at the time of purchase (EU, 2002), preceding the precautionary ban taking effect from 1 June 2011 (EU 2011a; EU 2011b). This confirms results that the likelihood of migration of BPA is very low and remains in very minute amounts. The results also suggest the absence of release from PES bottles based on the set of bottles investigated.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Catherine Simoneau, Sandro Valzacchi, Vaidas Morkunas, Liza van den Eede. Comparison of migration from polyethersulphone baby bottles with that of polycarbonate baby bottles. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2011, ⟨10.1080/19440049.2011.604644⟩. ⟨hal-00740780⟩