News Items - International Association of Packaging Research Institutes
| Jinan University leads key food-contact project China’s Jinan University led a consortium of 12 universities and research institutes, including Jiangnan University and China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA), on a National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC1603200), which finished last year, looking at testing and risk assessment for new food-contact materials. Zhi-Wei Wang, professor and Dean at Jinan’s College of Packaging Engineering, held the position of chief scientist on the project, which was designated a Major Scientific Research Program and ran from 2019 to 2021. The entire grant for the project was 28.24 million Yuan ($4.47m). “The project aimed at the safety issues and needs of the whole food supply chain, and solved key scientific and technical problems of detection and risk assessment for the increasing numbers of new food-contact materials,” said Wang.  The emphasis was on establishing high-throughput detection and rapid-screening technologies. A mass spectrum library of compounds was established. For substances of high concern in the materials such as ion-exchange resins, rubber seal rings, thin-wall metals, composite and active packaging, quantitative detection technologies were developed. A two-phase molecular dynamics simulation and prediction technique for migration in plastics materials, rubber and degradable materials was also realized. Importantly, said Jinan, dietary exposure and security risk assessment models were worked on that were specific to China. A clear roadmap was laid out for making this data available and commercializing it online. “The team developed six types of sample pre-treatment media, 14 screening methods for safety factors, 56 detection methods, 37 standard operating procedures in detection, and two models for quantitative safety risk assessment,” said Professor Wang. “In the conditions of complex supply chains, we also investigated the migration and exposure of hazardous substances among 12 new food contact materials.” Other achievements of the project include three new ISO standards, 25 national standards and seven import-export professional standards. Published: 02/27/22 |