Qualitative analysis of Sudan IV in edible palm oil

Abstract

Background: Palm oil is one of the most useful vegetable available. Sudan IV dye is used as hue enhancer in palm oil despite the ban as food colorant due to its carcinogenicity and mutagenicity by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Methods: Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) coupled with chemometric methods was applied to detect the presence of Sudan IV in some edible palm oil samples. Results: We studied the samples within the 1200–1800 cm− 1 Raman frequency range. In predicting adulteration, we used 1388 cm− 1 Raman peak that is associated with Sudan IV as our marker. We were able to confirm adulteration in four of the five palm oil samples provided by the Food and Drug Authority of Ghana. Conclusions: With these methods, we confirmed the results from Food and Drug Authorities of Ghana by proving that there were indeed Sudan IV adulteration in some palm oil samples.