Introduction
Antimony trioxide is extensively used by the polymer industry as a polycondensation catalyst in the production of PET. Consequently, contamination of food by antimony from PET packaging has raised concerns about consumer safety. Unfortunately the lack of data on diffusion characteristics of antimony compounds used in the production of PET makes the simulation of migration and the assessment of the risk difficult. A method to assess the migration from PET trays for heating of ready meals into food simulant (3% acetic acid) over a wide temperature range (45 to 150°C) is presented.