Rapid Spectrophotometric Method for Determining Erythrosine, Amaranth and Tartrazine in Ternary Mixtures

A very simple spectrophotometric method using measurements at zero-crossing wavelength is described for resolving ternary mixtures of the food colorants Erythrosine (E-127), Amaranth (E-123) and Tartrazine (E-102). Calibration graphs are linear up to 14 mg/L of Erythrosine and 28 mg/L for Tartrazine and Amaranth. RSD of 0.80, 0.85 and 1.84% were obtained for nine standards of 8 mg/L of Erythrosine, 8 mg/L of Tartrazine and 8 mg/L of Amaranth, respectively. Detection limits of 0.052, 0.934 and 0.123 mg/L were obtained for Erythrosine, Tartrazine and Amaranth, respectively. This method was satisfactorily used for determining synthetic mixtures of these colorants in different ratios and it was successfully applied to a commercial product containing the three dyes; no separation step is required. The results were compared with those obtained by liquid chromatography and very similar values were found by both methods.