The HPLC determination of synthetic food colorants

In this paper there are presented the research results concerning the establishing of the optimal work conditions for the determination of synthetic food colorants by high performance liquid chromatography. This technique has been shown to have great potential for the analysis of these compounds in terms of simultaneous separation, identification and quantification. There are presented all the steps of the analysis beginning with the sample preparation till detection. The optimised method is applied to a food sample analysis from meat products: a sausages sample. The analysed sample is a complex sample containing a great quantity of lipids, that's why the sample preparation is very important for the whole analysis. It is presented the easiest way to establish the type of the colorant: if it is a natural pigment or a synthetic dye. In Romania, the use of synthetic food colorants in meat products is forbidden by law, that's why it is very important to know the nature of the colorant to decide if it is necessary or not to do all the steps for an HPLC analysis.