A method for the simultaneous determination of 24 water soluble synthetic colors in premade cocktails was developed using ultra performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector(UPLC-DAD).In this paper

the chromatographic conditions for mobile phase

column and eluting gradient were optimized

and the best separation conditions were as follows:column:a Waters BEH C18 column(2.1 mm×50 mm

1.7 μm)

mobile phase:10 mmol/L ammonium acetate solution (pH 625) and methanol-acetonitrile(2∶8

by volume)

eluting by a gradient program.Under the optimized conditions

all the water soluble synthetic colors could be rapidly separated within 16 min.There were good linear relationships for the analytes in the concentration range of 0.01-50.0 mg/L with their correlation coefficients(r2) greater than 0.998 0.The limits of detection(LOD

S/N=3) and the limits of quantitation were in the ranges of 0.66-27.78 μg/L and 2.19-92.59 μg/L

respectively.The intra day and inter day RSD for the analytes were in the ranges of 0.04%-5.3% and 0.08%-6.4%

respectively.The recoveries for the synthetic colors ranged from 53.4% to 114%.With the advantages of many kinds of dyes detected

short analysis time and low detection limit

the method was successfully applied in the determination of cocktail samples on the market.