Equipments Details
Description
CONCEPT
The CBQF Packaging & Materials Platform comprises highly
experienced and skilled technical staff and supporting laboratory
infrastructure required to characterise, develop and test materials and
packages, regarding safety and food shelf-life. This Platform was designed and
is managed in a flexible manner though observing important rules for assurance
of the work quality and traceability. It combines resources required to
carry-on research and teaching activities as well as to support advice to
industry and market surveillance authorities. For this latter, the Platform
hosts the Portuguese National Reference Laboratory for Food Contact Materials.
OBJECTIVES
The CBQF Packaging & Materials Platform is able to
support studies on the impact of the material, and of the packaging system as a
whole, on the safety and food quality. As such, determination of the
composition and migration from packaging into the food may be performed, on
target and on non-target compounds such as non-intentionally added substances
(NIAS), impurities and compounds resulting from interaction and degradation
reactions. The instrumental analyses can be complemented with risk assessment
of chemicals and the exposure to consumers to the migrants can be estimated
through up-dated dedicated models. Determination of gas and moisture barrier
properties, optimization of packaging conditions (such as modified atmosphere
packaging and active packaging) and the impact of those on the food product
shelf-life can also be studied, through chemical, microbiological and sensorial
analyses. The platform also aims at the development of materials from vegetable
food industry wastes for packaging applications.
CAPACITIES
The CBQF Packaging & Materials Platform is equipped with
instruments for measuring permeability (oxygen and moisture in both films and
packages) and in-pack gas composition measurement; migration and Franz cells
for determinations of mass transfer through materials; gas chromatography
coupled with a range of detectors (FID, Ion trap and triple quadrupole mass
spectrometry), liquid chromatography (with DAD, RI and UV detectors), Atomic
absorption and UV-VIS Spectrophotometry. Migration of nano-particles can be
evaluated by DLS (dynamic light scattering) and ZP (zeta potential) and
material characterization by SEM microscopy, (micro)-DSC and Infra-Red
spectroscopy. The platform also holds humidity and temperature controlled
storage and a MAP pilot-scale machine.