Chromatographic behavior of selected dyes on silica and cellulose micro-TLC plates: Potential application as target substances for extraction, chromatographic, and/or microfluidic systems

ABSTRACT

The main goal of this research communication focuses on screening of chromatographic behavior of 18 colorants including amaranth, black PN, bromophenol blue, bromocresol green, bromocresol purple, bromothymol blue, carmine, dimethyl yellow, erythrosine, fluorescein, methyl red, naphthalene black, patent blue, phenol red, Sudan II, Sudan III, Sudan IV, and p-xylenol blue. They are commonly used as food and industrial colorants or sensing molecules for analytical and biomedical applications. We studied retention (R_F), peak base width (W_b), and peak asymmetry factor (A_S) data collected under thermostatic conditions (303 K) using silica and cellulose-coated microplates (5 × 5 cm) and simple as possible mono/binary eluents. Presented retention database may help to select the proper conditions for, for example, chromatographic separation, extraction to solid phase (e.g. bar-type extraction devices) or application of such chemicals as the internal standard substances for planar/column chromatography and/or microfluidic devices (e.g., microfluidic paper-based analytical devices—μPADs). Furthermore, the microplates peak capacity (maximum number of resolvable spots, n) was calculated and discussed. As the second goal, we presented results of literature concerning dyes quantification in complex samples. We compared latest methodologies involving simple spectrophotometric analysis and more sophisticated protocols like high-throughput separation/detection procedures based on high-performance planar/liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis and microfluidic devices.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Binary phases
• colorants
• dyes
• food
• group-type separation
• micro-planar chromatography
• sensing markers