A novel analytical method for tartrazine aluminum lake and sunset yellow aluminum lake using capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) was studied. The pigments contained in the color lakes were successfully separated from the aluminum matrix in the pre-treatment process, which included the following steps: dissolve the color lakes in 0.1 mol/L H2SO4, adjust the pH of the solution to 5.0, then mix it with the solution of EDTA·52Na and heat it in a water bath, then use polyamide powder as the stationary phase of solid phase extraction to separate the pigments from the solution, and finally elute the pigments with 0.1 mol/L NaOH. The CZE conditions systematically optimized for tartrazine aluminum lake were: 48.50 cm of a fused silica capillary with 40.00 cm effective length and 50 μm i. d., the temperature controlled at 20.0 ℃, 29.0 kV applied, HPO42--PO43- (0.015 mol/L, pH 11.45) solution as running buffer, detection at 263 nm. The conditions for sunset yellow aluminum lake were: the same capillary and temperature, 25.0 kV applied, HPO42--PO43- (0.025 mol/L, pH 11.45) solution as running buffer, detection at 240 nm. The limits of detection were 0.26 mg/L and 0.27 mg/L, and the linear ranges were 0.53-1.3×102 mg/L and 0.54-1.4×102 mg/L for tartrazine aluminum lake and sunset yellow aluminum lake, respectively. The RSDs were 4.3% and 5.7% (run to run, n=6), 5.6% and 6.0% (day to day, n=6) for tartrazine aluminum lake and sunset yellow aluminum lake, respectively. Further developments for this method could make it a routinely used method analyzing color lakes in foods.
