Effect of UV Irradiation on the Migration of DEHP from Food-Grade PVC Film into Packaged Ground Meat

Abstract

Effect of UV irradiation on the migration of di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) plasticizers from food-grade PVC film into packaged ground meat that had various levels of fat content (i.e. 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) was studied. After 20 h of UV irradiation (intensity 900µW cm-2)，the amount of migrated DEHP had a dramatic increase by 2.55, 2.75, 2.18 and 2.16 times in comparison to that in control samples having a fat content of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%, respectively. The migration was intensified greatly by the UV irradiation of 8 to 12 h. There were 220.10 mg kg-1, 245.88 mg kg-1, 291.18 mg kg-1, and 357.40 mg kg-1 DEHP migrating from the PVC film into the ground meat during these periods, which contributed a large proportion to the final total amounts of DEHP, being 66.6%, 57.5%, 60.6% and 68.7% of 20 h of UV irradiation, for the ground meat of fat content of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%, respectively. These results indicate that safety risk of packaged food will increase when the packaged food is under UV irradiation.