Cluster partner OFI investigates microplastics in foods

01/11/2023

Plastics are with us every day. It is impossible to imagine the economy or our personal everyday lives without them. This intensive use creates decay products that pose ever greater challenges to the economy, society and the entire ecosystem. It is assumed that microplastics, i.e. small plastic particles between 5mm and 1 μm, are everywhere in our environment. Also in our food?

In the research project "microplastic@food", funded by the food cluster of ecoplus in Austria and the IVLV, the OFI together with the Leibnitz Institute for Polymer Research Dresden, the University of Bayreuth and the Start Up Purency, is developing a valid method to measure the occurrence of microplastics in simple foods and their packaging in a standardized way. Potential sources and ways to avoid them were surveyed, so packaging materials and process environments were analyzed extensively.

In the planned follow-up project "MICROPLEXFOOD", the validated methodology is to be applied to more complex foods, such as cloudy beverages, dairy products, fish or processed meat products. In order to be able to examine not only the surface but also the internal matrix, the food must be "dissolved" or digested. The Austrian Research Institute for Chemistry and Technology (OFI) cooperates here with competent partners. Interested companies can have their own samples examined within the framework of the project and thus gain knowledge about the potential entry of microplastics from their products into food. The "MICROPLEXFOOD" project is expected to start in fall 2023.

Further information on the research projects can be found here .