Abstract: A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method was developed for simultaneous determination of 17 acrylate monomers in food composite packaging films and their migration to isooctane as an oily food simulant. The adhesive samples were diluted with methanol, and the composite film samples were extracted ultrasonically with methanol at 25 ℃ for 1 h. After the positive composite film samples were migrated to isooctane at 60 ℃ for 1 h or at 40 ℃ for 0.5 h, chromatographic separation was performed on an HP-INNOWax column prior to analysis in the selective ion monitoring (SIM) mode. An external standard method was used for quantitation. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) for the 17 monomers were 0.02–0.1 and 0.05–0.50 mg/L, respectively. At four spiked concentration levels of 0.1, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg/L, the recoveries for acrylate monomer residues and migration were in the range of 70.1%–109.2%, with relative standard deviations (RSDs, n = 6) ranging from 0.8% to 9.2%. This method required simple sample pretreatment, exhibited good separation performance, and could simultaneously detect the 17 acrylate monomers within 17 minutes. When it was applied to determine the residual amounts of acrylate monomers in 6 kinds of adhesives and 35 kinds of food composite packaging films and the migration amounts of positive composite films to isooctane, acrylate monomers were detected in all the adhesives and in only eight of the food composite packaging films, from which no migration of acrylate monomers was found.

Key words: acrylate monomers; adhesives; food composite packaging materials; residues; migration amount