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Stabilization of mineral oil hydrocarbons in recycled paper pulp by organo-functionalized mesoporous silicas and evaluation of migration to food

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An Erratum to this article was published on 18 April 2017

Abstract

The occurrence of mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH) in cellulose-based packaging is mainly due to the offset printing process where MOH are used as a ink pigments’ solvent. The MOH migration from paper/paperboard to food is matter of concern for EFSA, members state authorities, consumers, and food industry. In this study, the feasibility to stabilize MOH by adding a sorbent into recycled paper obtained through a common washing process was investigated and the migration to wheat flour/Tenax® assessed. Among several white/pale yellow porous materials, organo-modified powder silica MCM-41-Si(CH3)3 showed the best combination between affinity for MOH (184% dw) and stability to thermal regeneration. A freshly issued newspaper with >3000 mg MOH kg−1 was used to produce recycled paper at a laboratory-scale plant. MCM-41-Si(CH3)3 was added at the pulping step (1% dw) and the sorbent-enriched pulp handled according to a washing paper production process with no effect on the paper optical brightness. The MOH content of the wheat flour in contact with the sorbent-enriched paper under accelerated migration conditions (15 days at 40 °C) resulted 20% of that contacted with control paper (4.3 ± 1.1 and 20.4 ± 5.5 mg kg−1, respectively), despite its contamination was 24% higher than the control. On the contrary, Tenax® contamination resulted 56.0 ± 10.0 and 47 ± 14.0 mg kg−1 when exposed to sorbent-enriched and control paper, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Viale G. Fanin 44, 40127, Bologna, Italy

    Enrico Buscaroli, Daniela Montecchio & Ilaria Braschi

  2. INNOVHUB-SSI, Pulp and Paper Business Area, Milan, Italy

    Daniele Bussini & Graziano Elegir

  3. Department of Science and Technological Innovation, University of Eastern Piedmont A. Avogadro, Alessandria, Italy

    Chiara Bisio & Leonardo Marchese

  4. Interdisciplinary Nano-SiSTeMI Centre, University of Eastern Piedmont A. Avogadro, Alessandria, Italy

    Chiara Bisio, Leonardo Marchese & Ilaria Braschi

  5. Coop Italia s.c.a.r.l., Casalecchio di Reno, BO, Italy

    Davide Garbini

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  1. Enrico Buscaroli
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  2. Daniele Bussini
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  3. Chiara Bisio
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Correspondence to Ilaria Braschi.

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The original version of this article was revised: All authors given names and family names were swapped inadvertently. All the author names are corrected now.

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00217-017-2889-z.

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Buscaroli, E., Bussini, D., Bisio, C. et al. Stabilization of mineral oil hydrocarbons in recycled paper pulp by organo-functionalized mesoporous silicas and evaluation of migration to food. Eur Food Res Technol 243, 1471–1484 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-017-2867-5

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