Determination of seven yellow pigments illegally added into Chinese materia medica by HPLC-MS / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective: To establish a rapid method for the simultaneous determination of seven yellow pigments (tartrazine, sunset yellow, brilliant yellow, orange II, auramine O, astrazon orange G, and basic orange) which were illegally added into Chinese materia medica (CMM). Methods: The sample was extracted with ultrasonic by 70% ethanol, separated on a reversed phase C18 chromatographic column by gradient elution using a mobile phase made up of acetonitrile and 0.05 mol/L ammonium acetate solution, and then detected by diode array detector in the wavelength of 432 nm and mass spectrometry detector with ESI+ ion source. Results: Under the condition of the above chromatography and mass spectrometry, the separating degree, specificity, and durability of the seven yellow pigments were good. RSD of precision was between 0.4%-1.8%. Above pigment solution was stable in 24 h and RSD < 1.9%. The recovery rates of accuracy were between 95.1%-102.9%. The limits of detection (LODs) were in the range of 2-31 μg/kg, and the RSD of repeatability was in the range of 0.3%-1.4%. Auramine O was detected in three batchs of CMM for sale. Conclusion: This method is simple, rapid, reproducible and has high sensitivity, which can be used for the determination of seven yellow pigments illegally added into dyed CMM, and it can provide the reference or help for relative company and State Food and Drug Administration in controlling the quality of CMM.