Determination of Sudan Red in Capsicum Pigment by HPLC-MS/MS
[Objective]A high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry(HPLC-MS/MS)method was developed for the simultaneous determination of four Sudan red dyes in capsicum red pigment.[Method]The capsaicin pigment samples were extracted by n-hexane,purified by a special molecular imprinting column for Sudan red,separated by RP-HPLC on ZORABX SB-Aq C18(3.0 mm×100 mm,3.5 μm),water gradient elution of acetonitrile-0.1%formic acid,ESI+electrospray scanning.Sudan red in capsicum pigment was deter-mined by multiple reaction monitoring(MRM)and quantified by external standard method.[Result]The four Sudan red dyes showed a good linear relationship in the concentration range of 10.0-200 ng/mL,the detection limit was 5 μg/kg,and the quantification limit was 10 μg/kg.The average recovery was 71.0%-119.0%and the relative standard deviation was 1.53%-6.18%when the scalars were 10 μg/kg,20 μg/kg and 50 μg/kg(n=6).[Conclusion]This method is suitable for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of four Sudan red dyes in chili red pigment.