Development of oleoresin preparation from Thai black pepper

Abstract

Optimization of oleoresin preparation from Thai black pepper was performed in this study. Various factors which potentially affect the yield and quality of pepper oleoresin were investigated. These factors included solvent for extraction, type of black pepper, maceration time and process of oleoresin extraction. The results showed that pepper oleoresin could be obtained efficiently with good yield and good quality when acetone was used as the solvent for extracting light black pepper berries by a specially designed stepwise maceration. The developed method allowed 15.35% (w/w) oleoresin be extracted from the black pepper and the oleoresin contained 23.96% (v/w) volatile oil and 35.43% (w/w) piperine. The analysis of the volatile oil by Gas chromatography showed that the oleoresin oil composition was very similar to that of the pepper oil extracted directly from black pepper powder. The method potentially be scaled up for large-scale preparation of pepper oleoresin.