Recycling of polymeric packaging is used to reduce solid waste streams, encourage energy efficiency, and protect water and local environment from poorly degrading polymers. Municipal solid waste streams often struggle to maintain recycled polymer purity due to co-mingling. Manufacture, deconstruction, and retail or captive market venues can often supply higher purity recycled polymer streams. However it can be difficult for formulators to source all recycled polymer demand from these niche (but high quality) streams. Spot market purchases of recycled polymers bring the risk of unknown and varied contaminants being incorporated into the final products. One such example has been brominated flame retardants (BFR) and waste electronic and electronic equipment (WEEE) components identified in reusable food contact articles in Europe1. Most BFRs and WEEE components are not approved for food contact materials. Methods to detect such contamination have utilized X-ray Florescence (XRF) to detect bromine, extraction GC-MS to identify and measure BFRs, ICP-MS to identify and measure rare-earth elements, and pyrolysis GC-MS to detect polymer mixes/contamination. If a rapid screening could be more specific for BFR and inorganic FRs or polymer mixes, then WEEE contaminated polymer streams could be identified and re-purposed sooner, recycled polymer purchases could be more easily and routinely tested, and contaminated food contact materials could be identified. Direct Analysis in Real Time, a thermal desorption and chemical ionization source for mass spectrometry, (DART-MS) was used to evaluate over a dozen polymer samples (including food contact articles) with known concentrations of various BFRs, polymers, and WEEE components. Similarly DART-MS was identically used to analyze pure resins, BFR free formulations, and pure WEEE component standards. The DART-MS spectra of various BFR and WEEE components, their transformations in polymers, and their ion chemistry was evaluated to identify the best ion signatures for detection, identification, and screening of various polymers and food contact materials for WEEE contamination. For the first time inorganic WEEE components were detected in WEEE contaminated polymers by DART-MS.

Direct mass spectrometric signatures of E-waste in polymeric food contact materials

254th National Meeting (2017)

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