[Simultaneous rapid determination of eight food additives in foods by reversed-phase high performance liquid...

A simple and rapid method for the determination of eight food additives by RP-HPLC is described. They were saccharin, aspartame, benzoic acid, sorbic acid, vanillin, caffeine, carmine and sunset yellow. The experiments were carried on Shim-pack CLC-ODS (150 mm x 6.0 mm i.d.) with methanol-20 mmol/L NH4Ac (44:56, V/V; pH 7.0) as the eluent at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The UV detection wavelength was fixed at 220 nm. The food samples, after precipitation of the impurities with Carrez reagent, were injected directly into the HPLC system. The average recoveries of all the eight additives were between 91.9%-108.5%, and the RSDs were lower than 4% (n = 5). The analysis of a single sample required only 8 min. This method has been successfully applied to the routine analysis of these additives in foods.