Determination of 20 Kinds of Synthetic Colorants in Candied Fruit by HPLC

A method for the determination of tartrazine, xinhong, amaranth, indigo, ponceau S, carmine, quinoline yellow, sunset yellow, temptation red, bright blue, acid red 44, acid red, food red 1, orange yellow 1, acid red 50, patent blue V, erythrin, acid orange 2, acid orange 8 and bright blue G in candied fruit was established by high-performance liquid chromatography. The sample was extracted by methanol/ammonia solution, purified by mixed weak anion reversed phase solid phase extraction, eluted by methanol/20 mmol/L ammonium acetate as mobile phase, detected by multi-wavelength diode array detector, and quantified by external standard method. The correlation coefficients were higher than 0.999 in the linear range of 0.1~20 μg/mL. The recoveries were 84.0%~104.5%, the relative standard deviations (RSDs) were 1.3%~5.3%. Results showed that, the method had the advantages of convenient operation, good stability and high recovery, and was suitable for simultaneous analysis of 20 synthetic colorants in candied fruit. The method could be extended to the analysis of other colorants with the same structure property, and could be reference significance for the detection of colorants in other food categories.