Simultaneous High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Chrysoidine, Auramine O and Safranine T in Food

A method for the simultaneous determination of chrysoidine, auramine O and safranine T in food was developed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Samples were extracted using ammonia-methanol (1:50, V/V). Then the analytes were extracted from the extracts using CH2Cl2, concentrated and redissolved in formic acid-methanol (1:50, V/V), and cleaned up using n-hexane solution saturated with methanol prior to HPLC determination. The linear ranges of this method for determining the three pigments were 0.05-2.5 μg/ml and the correlation coefficients (r) all were higher than 0.9998. The recoveries for them in 6 kinds of foods spiked at two levels respectively ranged from 72.3% to 96.5%, and the RSDs were 0.3%-8.8% (n = 6). The limits of detection were about 0.02 mg/kg for chrysoidine, 0.03 mg/kg for auramine O and 0.004 mg/kg for safranine T.