DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A TLC METHOD FOR THE ANALYSIS OF SYNTHETIC FOOD-STUFF DYES

• Published in: Journal of liquid chromatography & related technologies 2013-10, Vol.36 (17), p.2476-2488
• Main Authors: Vlajkovic, Jelena, Andric, Filip, Ristivojevic, Petar, Radoicic, Aleksandra, Tesic, Zivoslav, Milojkovic-Opsenica, Dusanka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ammonium acetate; Chromatography; Dyes; Food; Food quality control; Foods; green analytical chemistry; Linearity; Liquid chromatography; Mass spectrometry; method development; reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography; reversed-phase thin-layer chromatography; Silicon dioxide; synthetic food colorants; Wavelengths
• ISSN: 1082-6076; 1520-572X
• DOI: 10.1080/10826076.2013.790771

A novel reversed-phase thin-layer chromatographic (RP-TLC) method was developed for simultaneous determination of ten most commonly used artificial food dyes. The method was validated with respect to specificity, linearity, precision, and accuracy and compared with reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method. In the case of TLC method horizontal developing technique was employed using octadecyl-modified silica as a stationary phase and 0.5 mol dm −3 ammonium sulfate in 30% of ethanol-water solution as a mobile phase. HPLC analysis was carried out using XDB-C18 column and gradient of mixture of aqueous ammonium acetate solution (0.1 mol dm −3 , pH = 6.5) and MeOH/ACN (1:1, v/v). Colorants were detected at 450, 500, and 625 nm wavelengths. The TLC method proved to be suitable for quantitative determination in relatively wide range of concentrations (20-300 ng/band). Satisfactory values of limits of detection and quantitation were established for both techniques, although somewhat higher in the case of TLC, ranging from 2-10 ng/band, that is, 3-20 ng/band. Both methods can be applied with satisfactory precision and accuracy, with clear advantage of TLC for simultaneous analysis of six samples per hour.