Chemistry
It is a synthetic dye produced using aromatic hydrocarbons from petroleum. It can be combined with tartrazine (E102) to produce various shades of green.
It is usually a disodium salt. The diammonium salt has CAS number . Calcium and potassium salts are also permitted. It can also appear as an aluminium lake. The chemical formation is C37H34N2Na2O9S3. The dye is poorly absorbed from the gastro-intestinal tract and 95% of the ingested dye can be found in the feces. It also reacts with certain bile pigments to form green feces.
Read more about this topic: Brilliant Blue FCF
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