Migration of engineered nanoparticles from packaging into food products

Commercial nanocomposite food packaging in the form of nano-silver containers and coated films were tested in real-food matrices to determine the degree of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) incorporation using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Migration testing was conducted on a range of food materials stored using different packaging materials for 10 days at 40 °C. Simulations using water and 3% acetic acid were also performed to identify the factors that affect migration. Silver nanoparticle migration from nano-silver impregnated polymer containers does not appear to be significant in the case of orange juice; displaying levels corresponding to 5.66 ± 0.02 μgL−1 compared to the migration from coated nano-silver films measured at 28.92 ± 0.01 μgL−1 in the same food, versus the concentration of silver recorded in associated control samples corresponding to 0.41 ± 0.02 μgL−1. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) attached with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were performed to confirm the presence of particles in the nano-scale range indicative of the amount of silver released in nanoparticle as opposed to the ionic form. No organoleptic changes on the samples were observed.