Raman spectroscopic determination of norbixin and tartrazine in sugar.

In this paper, a method for the detection of norbixin and tartrazine in sugar by means of resonance Raman spectroscopy is presented. The extraction was done in four steps using methanol and the measurements were performed in aqueous solution. The excitation wavelength was 514 nm for norbixin and 488 nm for tartrazine samples. The characteristic resonance Raman signals of the dyes were fitted by different functions. Depending on the R² values of the different fits, each spectrum was classified as positive or negative response. A detection limit of 250 ng g⁻¹ for norbixin and 989 ng g⁻¹ for tartrazine in solid sugar samples could be reached by logistic regression.