Rhodamin B

This is for you guys, Chemical lovers :)

Identify Food That Contains Rhodamin B Using
Chromatography Method

A.      What is Rhodamin B?

Rhodamin B is artificial red textile colouring. According to PermenkesNo. 1168/Menkes/Per/X/1999, Rhodamin B is included into forbidden and dangerous colouring for food, so we are not allowed to use Rhodamin B as a food colouring.

B.      How is the common characteristic of  food  that  contains Rhodamin B?

The common characteristics of food that contains Rhodamin B are:

a.    The colour is abnormally bright

b.    The colour is not homogeous (there is part that clotting)

c.    The taste is a bit bitter

C.      How to Identify Food That Contains Rhodamin B Using Chromatography Method?

We can identify wether the food is containing Rhodamin B or not by simple way, that is Chromatography. We just need glass, water, and filter paper.

The idea of the method is based on the difference ability of dissolved and capillarity of textile colouring and food colouring. The textile colourings, such as: Rhodamin B (Red), Methanil Yellow (Yellow), and Malachite Green (Green) is hard to dissolve in water.

The procedure is:

a.    Dissolve the Rhodamin B colouring in the water so we get solution with 1.0 mg/ml or 1.0 g/l consentration.

b.    Dissolve other food colouring, such as Tatrazin (Yellow) in other glass so get solution with 1.0 mg/ml or 1.0 g/l consentration.

c.    Drop one drop of each solutions in the filter paper (Approximately 2 cm from the edge of filter paper). Put the filter paper in the glass that has put water 1-1.5 cm.

d.    Wait for 30 minutes, the water will move up and dissolve the drop of solutions. Dry the filter paper.

e.    Observe what happens! Tatrazine moves up while the Rhodamin B doesn’t move from its place.

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