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Chilli Use |
Analysis |
Chemical Analysis of Chillies |
There has been much academic research into chillies. They are used in anti-mugging sprays, and medication for arthritis. |
The amount of capsaicinoids in a pepper can be determined by HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography), using this method:
A chromatogram like this will be produced: |
Used without permission from the Trigeminal Response Page. For full details of procedure please visit this page. |
The various capsaicinoids have only recently been identified as individual compounds. This was done with GC-MS, a technique which allows the determination of the structure of individual compounds within a mixture. |
This method allows the amount of individual capsaicinoids to be determined. From this the pepper can be classified on the Scoville scale. The relative retention times of some capsaicinoids are: N-vanillyl-n-nonanamide, 1.00; nordihydrocapsaicin, 0.90; capsaicin, 1.00; dihydrocapsaicin, 1.58 |