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In recent years, caps with PVC-free gasket have been developed and produced in the preserved food sector and they have been gradually replacing PVC-based ones. This type of choice was dictated by the need to produce sustainable packaging from a health and environmental point of view, even in the case of this type of closure. The study dealt with two type of caps, coded “A” and “B”, with two type of PVC-free gaskets, which differ in composition and application technology. In particular, the objective of this work was to study the behaviour of these new gaskets applied to metal caps intended for packaging preserved food, both in terms of suitability for food contact and from a technological standpoint. The gaskets were primarily characterized from a chemical–physical and mechanical point of view; overall migration and ad hoc methods for the determination of the specific migration of the substances present in their formulation were set up. In parallel, the technological suitability, related to the sealing parameters of the caps applied to the glass jars and the tightness of the packs, were evaluated. About food contact compliance, both caps, comply with the Union guidelines on Regulation (UE) n. 10/2011 on overall and specific migration. From the technological point of view, for gasket coded “A”, critical issues, the vacuum seal and, therefore, the tightness of the packages were highlighted.

Due to an error in production the members of SICE CoDIG (Colon Dx Italian Group) listed in the Acknowledgments were not tagged correctly as authors in the XML of this article. This listing is presented again here:.

Problems associated with stress corrosion of tinplate cans for foodstuffs are occurring at an increasing rate. The appearance of stress corrosion usually entails heavy financial penalties and high risk to the food. Unfortunately, at present, no practical measures exist to counteract this phenomenon. Stress corrosion is a type of localised corrosion which develops by way of the simultaneous action of particular media, which, in the absence of stress, may be only mildly aggressive or even non-aggressive, and a stress which is lower than that required for purely mechanical cracking. The aim of the present work was to study the susceptibility of tinplate to stress corrosion in different test media simulating foodstuffs. To this end, two approaches were used: an electrochemical technique, fast and slow polarisation, and a dynamic–mechanical technique, the slow strain rate test. The results of both tests enabled identification of the environment–material combination most susceptible to this type of corr...

The rapid determination of the durability and quality of a coating used to protect against corrosion is a practical problem that in the specific case canned food packaging, both canmaker and the food industry must consider carefully. In this work we discuss three methods for evaluating the adhesion of three types of lacquers (stoving and UV curing) applied on different tinplate substrate. In detail, the methods used are: dry adhesion, wet adhesion and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The last method allows the influence of both types of lacquers and tinplate supports to be evaluated when coming in contact with model solutions of foodstuff. Adhesion was studied before and after sterilisation treatment. The results show that the best protection is given by epoxyphenolic and organosol lacquers.

A metal container used for food packaging must preserve the food’s edibility characteristics for a long period of time. Lacquered tinplate is suitable for canning food provided that the cans are airtight. This article details a root cause failure analysis that was conducted utilizing a sample of tuna cans taken from an affected batch of one million units. Several examinations were carried out to identify the failure’s root cause: visual examination, SEM fractography, micro-hardness measurement, and microstructural characterization. The cracks are located in the HAZ of the welded zone. As a result of the examinations carried out, the authors were able to identify the cause of the primary failure. The identified fracture mechanism is that of stress corrosion cracking (SCC), due to both the aggressive environment (high water content in the oil) and the low lacquer adhesion caused by superficial welding irregularities.

Seventeen children with renovascular hypertension were managed at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, over the 20-year period from 1975 to 1996. The age at presentation ranged from 10 days to 18 years. All children presented with severe hypertension with mean systolic blood pressure 7 standard deviations above age-matched averages and mean diastolic blood pressure 5.5 standard deviations above age-matched averages. Neurofibromatosis was the most common etiology (58% of patients) and there were no cases of Takayasu's arteritis. Patients underwent a variety of biochemical and imaging investigations but in all cases renal angiography was necessary for definitive diagnosis and for planning therapy. Ten of the 17 patients had surgical procedures performed. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty was performed in four patients but led to cure in only one patient following thrombosis of the affected artery producing segmental renal infarction. Other vascular reconstructive procedures, including the use of autologous or synthetic bypass grafts and autotransplantation, produced cure of hypertension in 50% of children with improvement in a further 30%. The long-term outlook for children treated with surgical reconstructive procedures was excellent. One patient underwent surgery for avulsion of an arterial graft following a pubertal growth spurt. No other patient originally cured by surgery has required reoperation with no cases of restenosis at a mean follow-up of 11 years 3 months.