Publication

Abstract : The dyes play an important role in the food industry by imparting bright and appealing colors to food items. Even though they do not provide any significant nutritional output, they help in enriching the appearance and taste of food. There are hundreds of colorants produced after the preparation of first-ever artificial dye in 1856. But only a few are allowed by the authorities of food regulatory committees such as FSSAI, FDA, and EEC due to major health issues. The studies have proven that the food dyes can cause different health issues like allergies, hyperactivity, breathing difficulties and are even reported as carcinogenic. But the lower cost of synthetic dyes encouraged their frequent use in large amounts. So as a matter of public health and to ensure the quality of food, various countries have forbidden and permitted the use of many food dyes up to only an optimum level. However, the consumption of food dyes has not made any significant decrease. Extensive intake is practiced in worldwide by overcoming all the legal restrictions for economic benefits. This highlights the urgent requirement for the effective monitoring of these hazardous constituents in food products, thereby to safeguard the food quality and health of mankind. For this purpose, a wide range of analytical techniques including HPLC, gas chromatography, Raman spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry are utilized in food safety labs. But the higher cost, need for an expert person to handle the equipment and complicated procedures encouraged the scientific community to develop cost-effective, simple, compact, and highly efficient devices having a large number of advantages such as selectivity, easy fabrication, specificity, robustness, short experimental time, good sensitivity, and reproducibility. In this regard, electrochemical sensing systems are emerged as an ideal choice. The working electrodes are the key component of electrochemical sensor, and any kind of modification on the working electrode contributes considerably to the output signals. Herein, the surfactant-based modification on the working electrode for the detection of food dyes is discussed in detail. The availability of a variety of surfactants and their properties enables its use in regulating analytical signals in the voltammetry. Subsequently, the selectivity and sensitivity of response are enhanced sufficiently for the real sample analysis. The electrode modification with the help of the adsorption of surfactant on the electrode surface lowers the limit of detection. Hence, the application of surfactants in the electrochemical sensing systems extended the capabilities of this method in the quality valuation of food items. Surfactants such as SDS, CTAB, TX-100, CPB, and CTPBB are commonly reported for the investigation of various food dyes with appropriate working electrode, mainly CPE and GCE used. The surfactant alone, a combination of surfactant with nanoparticles, surfactant-impregnated silica, and the combination of surfactant with MWCNT and ionic liquid are explored for the analysis of different food dyes in different studies. The practical applications of the sensors proposed were analyzed by testing with real samples such as soft drinks, fruit juices, chili powder, and ketchup, etc., and it exhibited satisfactory results indicating the sensors are promising for real-time applications. The graphical abstract depicts an example of the application of surfactants to the electrode surface, here GCE has demonstrated, and its employment in three-electrode systems for the electrochemical evaluation.