In a next step, the project will assess the potential of inorganic contaminant migration of colored plastic packaging materials for food and also the chemical species and fraction of minerals or contaminants that is absorbed by the body.
Agilent Technologies, the leading world company in analytical measurement; the GEAtom Group, of the Institute of chemistry of the UNICAMP; and the ITAL-food technology Institute (through its science centres and Food Quality-CCQA and packaging technology-CETEA), signed a partnership to study the presence of inorganic contaminants in different foods (such as teas, beverages, oils, rice) and for the development of methodologies to ensure food security, authenticity and quality control of food. The project will be developed in three stages, which also include the study of migration of metals of plastic packaging for food (mainly contaminants as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury present in colorful plastic packaging commonly used in food packaging) and bioacessibilidade study and bioavailability of nutrients and toxic elements in foods, with the purpose of determining the fraction of nutrient or contaminant that can be absorbed by the body.
"The new technologies at our disposal will put development of studies related to the presence of mineral microelements, inorganic contaminants, of different chemical species of metals in food and packaging, besides enabling the analysis of inorganic bioacessíveis species present in food. For the success of these studies are necessary analytical techniques sufficiently sensitive and selective, "according to the scientific researcher Dr. Marcelo Antonio Morgano. Studies on inorganic contaminant migration from food packaging and on the bioacessibilidade/bioavailability of nutrients and toxic elements in foods are coordinated by researcher Elizabeth Segantini Saron and by Professor Dr. Solange Cadore, respectively.
The agreement with ITAL is part of Agilent's food security program in Brazil and "this research will result in new applications and total metals analysis methods and chemical species, that could be used for other food analysis laboratories or industries, improving the quality of the food we eat," explains André Santos, chemist responsible for Agilent's food security program in Brazil.
By the partnership, Agilent provides the complete system of analysis, which includes the ICP MS Agilent 7700 x equipment and the LC Agilent 1260, suitable also to optimize the reduced space laboratory. The employee system in partnership with the ITAL also has the optional item for introduction of oxygen in the plasma for direct analysis of samples with organic character, particularly important resource in the study of olive oils and other fatty acids. "Agilent 7700 System x has detector with about nine orders of magnitude of linear response, which allows the researcher, on a single method, determine concentrations very small-at levels of parts per trillion, this is 0.000000001%, the high levels of concentration, about 1%", says Fabio Silva, applications scientist of Agilent's food security program. The partnership extends to the end of 2013, and may be extended, depending on the need of the research institutions involved.
In addition to the partnership with ITAL, Agilent's food security program, has a collaboration agreement with the University research laboratory of Santa Maria, in the South of the country, for identification and quantification of contamination by pesticides in foods.
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