A new experimental procedure for incorporation of model contaminants in polymers was developed as part of a general scheme for testing the efficiency of functional barriers in food packaging. The aim was to progressively pollute polymers in a controlled fashion up to a high level in the range of 1000 ppm and use them as input for the core layer of a tri-layer package, in order to monitor migration phenomena difficult to study in real conditions. To this end, a contamination recipe was initially formulated by a set of selected surrogates. The experimental procedure developed, led to satisfactory results as far as homogeneity and final concentration in the polymers concerned. High temperature data were also used in order to evaluate the efficiency of typical thermoforming processes in reducing possible volatile and non-volatile substances from recycled polymeric materials.
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