Experiments on the Isolation of Bulk Amount of Piperine as Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) from Black Pepper and White Pepper (Piper nigrum L.)

Piperine is a naturally occurring alkaloid which can be considered as major bioactive phytochemical
having broad spectrum of pharmacological activities. It is obtained from the most valuable
ethnomedicinal spices peppercorns i.e. black pepper and white pepper, which are the fruits of the
Asian vine Piper nigrum L. The present article reveals a simple and effective isolation method of bulk
piperine. The novelty of this investigation is to provide an idea for utilizing such natural method of
large scale commercial piperine production as API drug in spite of chemical synthesis. Piperine was
isolated in a pure crystal form and characterized by its melting point, X-Ray diffraction (XRD) studies
and spectral data, including two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (2D-NMR) spectroscopy.
Chromatographic techniques like Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and High Performance Liquid
Chromatography (HPLC) were applied to determine the purity of the yielded piperine. Considering the
yield results of value and purity it is indicated that, such effective isolation method can be successfully
utilized for industrial large-scale production commercially. According to the result, it can be claimed
that, as a natural product the isolated piperine can also be utilized as API drug like other expensive
chemically synthesized piperine in different drug formulation.