Abstract: Herein, a high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) method was established for the detection 16 illegally added industrial dyes in foods, including Disperse Red 11, Disperse Yellow 9, Disperse Orange 3, Disperse Orange 11, Disperse Red 1, and Disperse Red 9, Disperse Yellow 54, Disperse Orange 37, Disperse Orange 61, Sudan Red 1, Disperse Yellow 7, Disperse Orange 149, Sudan Red 2, Sudan Red 3, Sudan Red 7B, and Sudan Red 4. The chromatographic separation was achieved on an Agilent ZORBAX SB-C18 column using a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile and water with a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. For commercial samples of candy, chocolate, tomato ketchup and tomato sauce, the limit of detection (LOD) was 0.26?0.88 mg/kg, and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.82?2.52 mg/kg. The spiked recoveries of the 16 dyes were in the range of 81.0%?110.3% with relative standard deviation (RSD) of 0.3%?7.5%. These results show that the developed method is reliable and stable and can be used for the routine determination and screening of illegally added dyes.

Key words: industrial dyes; high performance liquid chromatography; diode array detection; candy; chocolate; tomato sauce