Derivatization GC-MS techniques on plastic food contact materials

This chapter focuses on the derivatization techniques for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS) to determine the toxic chemicals migrated from plastic packaging into food or food simulants. The derivatization reactions were divided into four broad categories for convenience. Silylation is the most frequently used derivatization method, which has been introduced to the analysis of bisphenol A, a monomer of polycarbonate(PC), nonyl phenol(NP) and octyl phenol(OP), stabilizers of poly(vinyl chloride)(PVC). Alkylation has been applied for the determination of butyltin compounds, which can be used as stabilizers of PVC. Primary aromatic amines(PAAs) can be formed from residual aromatic isocyanates in plastic multilayer packaging films. Acylation has been reported to determine the trace amount of PAAs in water food simulants. The oxolation has been reported to determine the residual amount of epoxidized soybean oil(ESBO), which can be used as plasticizer in PVC, and epichlorohydrin(ECH), which can be used as a monomer in epoxy coatings.