Quantification of water-soluble synthetic colors by HPLC-DAD method

A simple yet accurate liquid chromatography method has been developed for the simultaneous quantitative determination of food colorants in a few commercially available foods. This analysis method incorporates an easy-to-follow extraction process with water as the extraction solvent to achieve the best color extraction. A Newcrom BH column with isocratic elution was employed for the analysis, and the components of the mobile phase were methanol, water, and sulphuric acid. To increase the sensitivity for analyte determination, color additives were quantified using multiple specific wavelengths. All 4 synthetic colour compounds (INS 102, INS 110, INS 129 & INS 133) showed good linearity with coefficient of determination above 0.999. This quick and easy technique enables the simultaneous determination of four artificial colorants in food products with recoveries averaging 87% among the examined food commodities and a minimum quantification range from 2.0 mg/kg.