Optimization of Piperine Extraction Process from Vietnamese White Pepper

Abstract

The primary theme of this research was to consider and examine the piperine extraction process conditions from white pepper Piper nigrum L. The extraction method was carried out using a solvent cyclic extraction system with the same operating principle as the industrial apparatus and widely used in actual production. First, the one-factor-at-a-time method was used to determine the effects of the parameters on each process. The extraction conditions such as the ethanol concentration (90% v/v), solvent/solid ratio (3:1 mL/g), 3 times extraction per batch, each time at 70 °C for 60 minutes were found. The expected value of piperine yield from white pepper was 38.7 mg piperine/g of dry material and piperine content in oleoresin was 519.2 mg piperine/g of oleoresin. However, this method did not include the interaction effects between the research variables, which has not fully described the impact of the parameter for the response. Therefore, the study has successfully built a process for extracting oleoresin by Response Surface Methodolody (RSM) based on optimal conditions for 3 factors: ethanol concentration (85% v/v); solvent/solid ratio (3.4:1 mL/g), and extraction time (78 minutes). The results showed that the piperine extraction efficiency had a significant improvement (51.99%) compared with the variable-by-variable method (38.7%). This study proved the potential application of white pepper for the purpose of extracting active ingredients and economic. In other words, the entire skull of this pepper, which contained an abundant amount of piperine, was utilized to the maximum without wasting any leftover material after the extraction process.