Fast analysis of capsaicinoids in Naga Jolokia extracts (Capsicum chinense) by high-performance liquid chromatography using fused core columns

Abstract

A rapid high-performance liquid chromatography method with a C18 reverse-phase fused-core column has been developed for the determination and quantification of the main capsaicinoids (nornordihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin, capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin, homocapsaicin and homodihydrocapsaicin) present in Naga Jolokia peppers. A fused-core Kinetex™ C18 column (50×2.1mm i.d.; 2.6μm) was used for the analysis. The chromatographic separation was obtained with a gradient method in which the mobile phase was water (0.1% acetic acid) as solvent A and acetonitrile (0.1% acetic acid) as solvent B. The separation of all compounds was achieved in less than 3min with a total analysis time (sample-to-sample) of 10min. The robustness of the method was evaluated. The method showed excellent repeatability and intermediate precision expressed as coefficient of variance of less than 2%. The developed method was employed for the quantification of the major capsaicinoids present in different peppers and commercial products containing chilli peppers.

Keywords: Capsaicin (PubChem CID: 1548943); Capsaicinoids; Capsicum chinense; Dihydrocapsaicin (PubChem CID: 107982); Fused-core columns; HPLC; Homocapsaicin (PubChem CID: 71448975); Homodihydrocapsaicin (PubChem CID: 3084336); Naga Jolokia; Nordihydrocapsaicin (PubChem CID: 168836); Nornordihydrocapsaicin (PubChem CID: 25200611); Peppers.