With polyamide (PA) as an efficient sorbent for solid phase extraction (SPE) of Sudan dyes II, III and Red 7B from saffron and urine, their determination by HPLC was performed. The optimum conditions for SPE were achieved using 7 mL methanol/water (1: 9, v/v, pH 7) as the washing solvent and 3 mL tetrahydrofuran for elution. Good clean-up and high (above 90%) recoveries were observed for all the analytes. The optimized mobile phase composition for HPLC analysis of these compounds was methanol-water (70: 30, v/v). The SPE parameters, such as the maximum loading capacity and breakthrough volume, were also determined for each analyte. The limits of detection (LODs), limits of quantification (LOQs), linear ranges and recoveries for the analytes were 4.6-6.6 μg/L, 13.0-19.8 μg/L, 13.0-5000 μg/L (r2 > 0.99) and 92.5%-113.4%, respectively. The precisions (RSDs) of the overall analytical procedure, estimated by five replicate measurements for Sudan II, III and Red 7B in saffron and urine samples were 2.3%, 1.8% and 3.6%, respectively. The developed method is simple and successful in the application to the determination of Sudan dyes in saffron and urine samples with HPLC coupled with UV detection.
