Extraction Of Capsanthin From Hot Red Peppers

Capsanthin is a kind of natural red pigments with high color value. Capsanthin is not only safe for use, but also salubrious, such as anticancer. So capsanthin is widely used in the fields of food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, children's toy and so on. Moreover, the byproduct—capsaicin is also very useful. For example, capsaicin is the material of ease pain medicines and is used for abstaining from poison. Capsaicin is also the material of the tear bomb. So capsaicin is usually regarded as "soft gold". In China, there are plentiful of capsicums and the capsicums have many different species. So it should have bright future for us to study the extraction of capsanthin from hot red peppers. This paper studied three extraction technologies of capsanthin and optimized the extraction conditions respectively, which were acetone extraction technology, batch enzymatic extraction technology and continuous enzymatic extraction technology. Comparing these three extraction technologies under the respective optimization extraction conditions, we found that the color value of the acetone extraction technology is the highest. For the batch enzymatic extraction technology, the color value is the middle, but the byproduct—capsaicin content is 30% higher than the acetone extraction technology. For the continuous enzymatic extraction technology, there are more impurities, so not only the color value but also the capsaicin content is low. Therefore, the acetone extraction technology is the best choice. After that, the silica gel column chromatography was used to separate capsaicin from capsanthin. In order to remove the saponifiable matters, the alkaline ethanol was used as the saponification solution. After saponification, the capsanthin was extracted from the saponated red pigment with acetone until the extraction solution is colorless. Finally capsanthin crystallizes in the petroleum ether. The stability of the capsanthin crystal was also studied. The result is that oxidant can enhance the stability of the capsanthin crystal.