Qualitative and Quantitative Determination of Some Yellow, Orange and Red Food Dyes by Resonance Raman Spectroscopy

The use of resonance Raman spectroscopy in the determination of food dyes was studied with the yellow, orange and red dyes registrated by the European Economical Community. The natural dyes studied did not exhibit a resonance Raman spectrum, but most of the artificial dyes give spectra that can be used for analytical determinations. The detection and identification limits are sufficiently low for practical use. The identification capability and its advantage over absorption spectrometric measurements are demonstrated on a commercial bubble gum sample. Quantitative measurements indicated a good accuracy for this method.