HIGH-PERFORMANCE CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORETIC ANALYSIS OF SYNTHETIC FOODCOLORANTS

A high-performance capillary electrophoresis method with diode-array d etection has been developed for analysis of synthetic food colorants. The influence of buffer composition on the separation of the food colo rants was examined, as were the effects of alpha-, beta- and gamma-cyc lodextrins on analyte migration behavior. Eight food colorants were co mpletely separated within 10 min using pH 9.5 borax - NaOH buffer cont aining 5 mM beta-cyclodextrin. Experimental results indicate that the relative standard deviations of analyte migration times were < 0.88% u nder the optimized separation condition. Correlation coefficients of t he linear calibration plots of the analytes exceeded 0.998. The method was suitable for determination of the quantities of synthetic food co lorants in ice cream bars and fruit soda drinks.