Simultaneous Determination of Tartrazine and Sunset Yellow in Soft Drinks by Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

Food pigments have been used to enhance sensory response and meet the consumers always growing demands. Synthetic pigments present some advantages in comparison with the natural ones, but they can cause adverse toxicological side effects, being considered as unhealthy substances for humans. Therefore, much attention has been given to the development of new advanced analytical techniques for the analysis of synthetic colours in beverages. The main aim of this work was the determination of two colorants, Tartrazine (E-102) and Sunset Yellow (E-110) added to different soft drinks, using an efficient chromatographic method, without an extensive sample pre-treatment. The obtained results for the determinations of Tartrazine and Sunset Yellow on real soft drink samples demonstrated that the described method is rather fast, is accurate and precise, with a very good detection limit (LOD) and quantification limit (LOQ).