Abstract: In order to investigate whether the migration of nano-components from polyolefin food packaging films into food simulants obeys Fick’s second law, the available experimental data were fitted to the Crank model to estimate the diffusion coefficients of nano-components migration from nano-metal/metal oxide-polyolefin food packaging films. The effects of temperature, polyolefin, nano-components and food simulants on the diffusion coefficient were analyzed. The results showed that the migration of nano-components into food simulants was consistent with Fick’s second law. The increase in temperature promoted the migration of nano-components, and the relationship between the diffusion coefficients and temperature was in accordance with the Arrhenius model. The structures of polyolefin had different effects on the diffusion coefficients; among three structures of polypropylene, nano-copper and nano-zinc oxide had the largest diffusion coefficient in isotactic polypropylene. Different concentrations of nano-components had different effects on their diffusion coefficients. The solubility differences between nano-components and food simulants and polyolefins affected the migration of nano-components into food simulants.

Key words: diffusion coefficient, migration model, temperature, polyolefin, nano-components, food simulants