Rhodamine B is a chemical compound and a dye. It is often used as a tracer dye within water to determine the rate and direction of flow and transport. Rhodamine dyes fluoresce and can thus be detected easily and inexpensively with fluorometers. Rhodamine B is used in biology as a staining fluorescent dye, sometimes in combination with auramine O, as the auramine-rhodamine stain to demonstrate acid-fast organisms, notably Mycobacterium. Rhodamine dyes are also used extensively in biotechnology applications such as fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and ELISA.

Other uses

Rhodamine B is often mixed with herbicides to show where they have been used. It is also being tested for use as a biomarker in oral rabies vaccines for wildlife, such as raccoons, to identify animals that have eaten a vaccine bait. The rhodamine is incorporated into the animal's whiskers and teeth. Rhodamine B is an important hydrophilic xanthene dye well known for its stability and is widely used in the textile industry, leather, paper printing, paint, coloured glass and plastic industries. Rhodamine B (BV10) is mixed with quinacridone magenta (PR122) to make the bright pink watercolor known as Opera Rose.

Properties

Rhodamine B can exist in equilibrium between two forms: an "open"/fluorescent form and a "closed"/nonfluorescent spirolactone form. The "open" form dominates in acidic condition while the "closed" form is colorless in basic condition. The fluorescence intensity of rhodamine B will decrease as temperature increases. The solubility of rhodamine B in water varies by manufacturer, and has been reported as 8 g/L and ~15 g/L, while solubility in alcohol (presumably ethanol) has been reported as 15 g/L. Chlorinated tap water decomposes rhodamine B. Rhodamine B solutions adsorb to plastics and should be kept in glass. Rhodamine B is tunable around 610 nm when used as a laser dye. Its luminescence quantum yield is 0.65 in basic ethanol, 0.49 in ethanol, 1.0, and 0.68 in 94% ethanol. The fluorescence yield is temperature dependent; the compound is fluxional in that its excitability is in thermal equilibrium at room temperature.

Safety and health

In California, rhodamine B is suspected to be carcinogenic and thus products containing it must contain a warning on its label. Cases of economically motivated adulteration, where it has been illegally used to impart a red color to chili powder, have come to the attention of food safety regulators.