Separation and Determination of Yellow and Red Safflower Pigments in Food by Capillary Electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoretic methods were developed for analyzing yellow and red safflower pigments in food. Yellow safflower pigment was successfully separated by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with a 300 mm borate buffer (pH 9.0), but this method could not successfully separate the red safflower pigment. The red safflower pigment was discolored in an alkaline solution. Both the yellow and red pigments could be successfully separated by micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) with 2.0% butyl acrylate/butyl methacrylate/methacrylic acid copolymer sodium salts (BBMA), but neither pigment could be separated with 20 mm sodium dodecyl sulfate. The yellow safflower pigment was extracted from food samples (juice and candies) by solid-phase extraction cartridges and analyzed by the developed technique.