Bio-based and biodegradable materials – commonly referred to as bioplastics – are marketed as sustainable alternatives to conventional petroleum-based plastics. One aspect of sustainability, often neglected in assessments, is safety. Indeed, the limited available research on bioplastics has demonstrated that they can contain a wider variety of chemicals and may be similarly as toxic as conventional plastics (FPF reported, here, and here).
Vázquez-Loureiro, affiliated with Oniris, Nantes, France, and the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and co-authors used a non-target approach to investigate the number and identity of chemicals present in 17 biobased/biodegradable food contact articles (FCAs). Their article, published on September 19, 2025, in the Journal of Chromatography A, shows that many of the chemicals present in bioplastics are not yet regulated or fully understood in terms of toxicity.
Overall, the researchers detected 125 volatile and 50 semi-volatile compounds, tentatively identifying 100 of the volatile ones. Among the identified chemicals were additives as well as non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), such as unpolymerized monomers, oligomers, solvent residues, and degradation products. Examples include plasticizers such as 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol diisobutyrate (CAS 6846-50-0) and diisobutyl phthalate (CAS 84-69-5), as well as degradation products of the antioxidant butylhydroxytoluene (BHT, CAS 128-37-0). According to the authors, they are the first to identify cyclic oligoesters in materials made of polylactic acid (PLA). Notably, several of the identified compounds, including some of the cyclic oligoesters, were classified as Cramer class III indicating high toxicological concern.
Vázquez-Loureiro and co-authors highlighted that only 9 out of the 50 semi-volatile substances and 15 of the 100 tentatively identified volatile substances are included in the EU’s plastic food contact material regulation (No 10/2011), raising safety concerns. To further assess the risk of the identified compounds, the authors propose migration studies and quantification as the next steps, while clarifying that the latter is hampered by the lack of analytical standards for many NIAS. Overall, they emphasized the advantage of combining several analytical techniques as these provide complementary information.
For their analysis, the scientists purchased 17 FCAs labelled as bio-based and/or biodegradable from retailers in Spain. Specifically, the FCAs were made of bio-polyethylene (bio-PE), bio-polypropylene (bio-PP), bio-polyester (bio-PES), bio-polyester-polyvinyl alcohol (bio-PES-PVOH), and PLA. Volatile compounds were analyzed by Purge & Trap coupled to gas chromatography–low-resolution mass spectrometry (P&T-GC-LRMS) and semi-volatile compounds by gas chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) after extracting the chemicals with acetonitrile.
To identify the volatile chemicals, the authors manually compared the mass spectrum peaks with the spectral libraries NIST/EPA/NIH 11 (version 2.0) and Wiley Registry TM 8th edition. Identification of semi-volatile chemicals was performed by comparison to NIST/EPA/NIH (NIST14) and consulting the scientific literature. Using exact masses and retention times, some chemicals were confirmed with analytical standards when available.
Interested in more information on bioplastics? The Food Packaging Forum’s fact sheet introduces the material type and addresses common questions (FPF reported).
Reference
Vázquez-Loureiro, P. et al. (2025). “Identification of volatile and semi-volatile components in food contact bioplastics based on GC–MS non-targeted screening.” Journal of Chromatography A. DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2025.466377
