The extraction of black, white and red peppers (piper nigrum l.) / Fairus Nadiana Saudi

Piper nigrum L. is an evergreen climber plant that originated from the southeastern India. This plant produces a berry-like fruit which is known as peppercorn. The types of peppercorns produce by this plant is differentiated by stages of ripening and processing methods. The most common peppercorns are black and white peppers. This study was carried out to review the chemical constituents of black and white peppers based on the literature and to isolate the chemical compounds from both types of peppers. Major alkaloid present in P. nigrum L. is piperine. The samples of black peppers come from different origins which include India, Pakistan and Vietnam. Meanwhile, the sample of white pepper was from Sarawak. All samples were macerated in dichloromethane. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) was conducted to screen the compounds present in the crude extract. Preparative TLC is used to isolate the compounds from black pepper sample from India. Further analysis was conducted for the purified compound by using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Based on the TLC profiles of all the samples, alkaloid was present in the samples of black and white peppers. However, alkaloid was absent in dichloromethane extract of red pepper. From the H-NMR, the compound from white pepper sample was identified as piperine.