In the present work, a new spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of aluminum in soda drinks packed in different materials. Reaction among Al(III), phenylfluorone (PF) and cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) in slightly alkaline medium was explored for this purpose. The method was optimized regarding to its chemical parameters in order to establish better conditions in terms of sensitivity and selectivity. The results obtained showed that the concentration of CPC presented remarkable influence on the sensitivity and acted as a sensitizer for the studied system. The possible interferences of some metallic cations were evaluated and the cations Cu(II), Mn(II), and Zn(II) presented noticed interference on the Al(III) signal. So, their interference was eliminated by using EDTA with minimum loss of sensitivity. The results obtained in the determination of total aluminum in soda drinks by the developed methodology were not statistically different from those obtained by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. In the optimized conditions the method presented a linear range of 5-100 mu g L-1. The limits of detection and quantification were 0.81 and 2.7 mu g L-1, respectively. The methodology was successfully applied in the determination of aluminum in 10 samples of soda drinks packed in cans and plastic bottles. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.