QuEChERS-high performance liquid chromatography for the determination of synthetic colorants in food

A high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 7 synthetic colours such as tartrazine, sunset yellow, ponceau 4R, amaranth, brilliant blue, carmoisine, allura red in bean and meat products. The analytes were extracted from the samples by ethanol-ammonia -water (volume ratio 7∶2∶1) , and purified by a modified QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rigged, and safe) method, and then separated by a SunFire TM C 18 (250mm×4.6mm, 5μm) after concentrating. Methanol-20mmol/L ammonium acetate was used as mobile phase with a gradient elution at the rate of 1mL/min and the detection wavelength was 410nm and 520nm. The interference of matrix was reduced by the matrix-matched calibration standard curves. The linear range was 0.5～10μg/mL with correlation coefficients from 0.9971 to 0.9999. When 0.5～10μg/mL standard solutions were added to blank samples, the average recoveries were 83.01%～108.84% and the relative standard deviations ranged from 4.53% ～15.23% . The limits of detection were ranged from 0.1mg/L to 0.3mg/L and the limit of quantification from 0.3mg/kg to 0.4mg/kg. This method is simple, accurate and sensitive to screen synthetic colorants residue in bean and meat products.