Separation of capsaicin from Red Chilli Extract by Flash & prep HPLC

Delivering large quantities of high purity compounds in the shortest possible time is the goal of a purification chemist. Two of the most popular purification techniques are Flash Chromatography and prep HPLC. Traditionally, Flash chromatography is characterized by the ability to load large amounts of material and short purification times, while prep HPLC is valued for high resolution separations resulting in very pure products. Therefore, Flash chromatography is typically used as a complementary technique whereby the crude sample is enhanced to a higher level of purity before final purification using prep HPLC. The below application shows the combination of flash and prep HPLC used to purify Capsaicins, an active compound of chili peppers, are N-vanillylamides of fatty acids. It is commonly used as an essential component of certain cuisines and can also used as an analgesic in topical ointments and dermal patches to help relieve pain. Due to similarity in structures, isolation of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin becomes difficult and tends to be a lengthy process. Traditional flash chromatography alone is not able to adequately separate the capsaicin in the extract, therefore a two-step purification using flash chromatography and prep HPLC is required.