Abstract:

Ceramic food packaging containers with improperly formulated glazes can release some toxic heavy metals such
as lead, cobalt, nickel and zinc into foods, which may contaminate the foods and even endanger consumers’ health. In order
to explore the leaching behavior of lead, cobalt, nickel and zinc, long-term contact experiments were carried out using glazed
tile samples with 4% and 10% acetic acid solutions under different conditions. Results indicated that nickel was the most
leachable element, and lead was the least leachable element. Both the amount of heavy metals released into the leachate and
the release rate were positively related to temperature. The released amount of heavy metals became higher with decreasing
pH of food simulants. Parabolic Fit analysis of all leaching data on long-term yield revealed good correlation (R2 ≥ 0.93),
which indicates the migration of lead, cobalt, nickel and zinc from glaze tile into food simulants to be a diffusion-controlled
process and have a linear -dependent manner.

Key words: words：food packaging materials, lead, cobalt, nickel, zinc, acidic food simulants, migration