Detecting Bisphenol A in Food & Beverage Containers

With Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introducing legislation, as early as next week, to ban Bisphenol A (BPA) from being used in food and beverage containers, Dionex Corporation has already developed a fast accurate screening method for detecting BPA in food and beverage containers. The US FDA has been concerned about the negative health effects of BPA as studies have increasingly linked BPA exposure to a wide range of health disorders ranging from obesity, reproductive issues, cancers, and abnormal brain development, particularly in at-risk populations, such as children and infants. To monitor and reduce human exposure to BPA and structurally related compounds, analytical methods are necessary that can be performed rapidly and with the required selectivity and sensitivity required for quantitative analysis. Dionex Corporation has demonstrated several applications, including the recovery of BPA from canned tuna and phenols in drinking water. Additional methods using ultra-sensitive mass spectrometric detection have been developed for rapid automated testing for BPA without sample preparation or preconcentration, and utilised for the testing of bottled water, consumer products, and infant feeding bottles.