Szynal 2016 - nickel and chromium migration from Polish-market ceramic and glassware

Szynal, Rebeniak, and Mania measured nickel and total chromium migration from ceramic tableware and decorated-rim glassware available on the Polish market into acidic food simulants. The study found nearly all migration values below the method limit of quantification (0.02 mg/L), with one decorated ceramic bowl inner surface releasing nickel at 0.04 mg/L. The evidence is food-contact-material leachate data, not food-as-consumed occurrence data.

Key numbers

• Publication identity: Rocz Panstw Zakl Hig 2016;67(3):247-252; received 25.03.2016, accepted 25.06.2016; 6 PDF pages.
• Sample frame from abstract: 172 ceramic vessels and 52 glass vessels, generally available on the domestic Polish market, with inner surfaces mainly coloured and with rim decorations.
• Sample details from Materials and Methods: 172 ceramic vessels were described as 84 deep dishes and 88 flat dishes; 52 glassware samples had decorated rims. The Results paragraph later says 171 test ceramic vessels, so the source has a one-vessel ceramic count inconsistency.
• Ceramic migration condition: 4% acetic acid for 24 ± 0.5 hrs at 22 ± 2°C, filled to 1 mm below the overflow edge and held in a dark room.
• Glassware migration conditions: 4% acetic acid for 24 ± 0.5 hrs at 22 ± 2°C, or 0.5% citric acid for 2 ± 0.1 hours at 70 ± 2°C.
• Main occurrence result: nickel and chromium migration from the tested ceramic and glassware was below LOQ = 0.02 mg/L under the applied conditions, except for one decorated ceramic bowl inner surface with nickel migration 0.04 mg/L.
• Regulatory context cited by the authors: EU legislation had not set nickel or chromium migration limits from kitchen utensils at the time; the Council of Europe P-SC-EMB practical guide recommended migration limits of 0.14 and 0.250 mg/kg for nickel and chromium, respectively, released from metals and alloys used in food-contact articles.
• Nickel dietary-exposure context cited by the authors: chronic average exposure to nickel for the general population ranged from 2 μg/kg bw/day for the elderly to 13 μg/kg bw/day for small children, close to or above a 2.8 μg/kg bw/day TDI cited in the paper.
• Drinking-water comparator cited by the authors: maximum permissible nickel in water intended for human consumption 20 µg/L, lower than the 70 µg/L WHO level cited by the paper; total chromium in water intended for human consumption 50 µg/L.

Method validation parameters

Source-cited literature comparators

These are not new occurrence data from Szynal 2016, but the authors use them to place the study in context:

Methods (brief)

The authors validated flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) for nickel and chromium released into food simulants from ceramic and glass tableware. White undecorated ceramic and glassware validation samples were spiked at 0.02 mg/L and 0.80 mg/L. Reagents included high-purity acetic acid, citric acid, nickel and chromium standards, and deionised water. Nickel was measured at wavelength 232.0 nm and chromium at 357.9 nm using an air-acetylene flame.

Implications

Certification (HMTc): This source supplies food-contact leachate context for Ni and total Cr in ceramic and glass tableware. Because almost all values are censored below 0.02 mg/L, it should be handled as a censored migration dataset and kept separate from food concentration pools.

Courses: The paper is useful for teaching why acidic simulant choice, contact time, temperature, decoration placement, and LOQ determine whether food-contact metal migration is measurable.

App: If tableware context is surfaced, this source can support a low-detection Polish-market ceramic/glassware Ni/Cr migration example while warning that the result is simulant-specific and not a food concentration.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• tableware-ceramicware
• tableware-glassware
• tableware-decorative-decals-coatings
• nickel
• chromium

Verification notes

• PDF text was extracted with pdftotext -layout to /tmp/ingest.txt; abstract, Materials and Methods, Table 1, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and the reference list were checked against this page.
• Identity checks before creation: title phrase, first author, journal citation Rocz Panstw Zakl Hig 2016;67(3):247-252, raw SHA-256 d385d6d97625c2f4bad997acb44811c8ca22cb87645d8df29a47ea9cd0d2a95f, raw handle MFK_migration-studies-of-nickel-and-chromium-from, and cite key szynal2016-polish-ceramic-glassware-ni-cr were searched in wiki/sources/ and evidence files; only intake/tracker CSV rows and related but distinct Rebeniak/Mania source pages were found.
• DOI status: no DOI is printed in the extracted text or PDF metadata. The page uses doi: null and no_doi_assigned: true.
• Count discrepancy: the abstract reports 172 ceramic and 52 glassware samples; the Results paragraph says 171 test ceramic vessels. I kept sample_n: 224 from the explicit abstract and Materials/Methods counts while flagging the inconsistency.
• Units are preserved as printed: migration results and validation parameters use mg/L; contextual comparisons use mg/kg, μg/kg bw/day, µg/L, and μg/mL as printed.
• Speciation: chromium is reported as chromium migration by FAAS, not hexavalent chromium. Frontmatter uses Cr, and the page does not substitute Cr(VI).
• Closed-vocabulary check: product slugs are the broad ceramic tableware, glassware, and decorative decals/coatings rows in the current taxonomy snapshot. No over-specified bowl, dish, or decorated-rim slug was invented.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.