Abstract:

A dual-wavelength ratio spectrometric method was presented for the determination of carmine, sunset yellow and tartrazine in fruit-flavored carbonated beverages. According to the spectral characteristics of the pigments, the wavelengths were chosen to be 431 nm and 456 nm for tartrazine detection and 509 nm and 525nm for carmine detection under the disturbance of sunset yellow and 514 nm and 535 nm for sunset yellow detection under the disturbance of carmine. Results showed that the developed standard curves for determining carmine, sunset yellow and tartrazine all exhibited good linearity over the concentration ranges of 0.2 to 80, 0.8 to 90 mg/L and 0.1 to 60 mg/L, respectively. The mean recoveries of 5 replicates of carmine, sunset yellow and tartrazine in orange-flavored Miranda soft drink were 100.5%, 101.1% and 102.4% respectively. This method proved to be simple and convenient and thus deserves to be popularized.

Key words: dual-wavelength ratio, carmine, sunset yellow, tartrazine, bevevage