Experiment 25: Isolation Of Piperine From Black Pepper

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Bradley S. Winegardner, Chem 213W
Synthetic #1 FFR
Experiment 25: Isolation of Piperine from Black Pepper

Introduction
The use of natural products as medicine has been practiced for thousands of years. Natural products can be very diverse and yield the best medicinal results because they may produce fewer side effects. Natural products are used as the starting products by pharmaceutical companies when trying to create new, modernized medicines. Making medicine out of natural products has had a lasting effect on organic chemistry because it paved the path for modern, medicinal research on pharmaceuticals and for the development of new, synthetic medicines synthesized in a laboratory setting.
The purpose of this experiment was to isolate …show more content…

Reflux is an isolation technique that heats a reaction mixture to produce a distillate that travels up a reaction vessel and is cooled using a reflux condenser (Figure 2, Report) and cold water, which will condense the distillate back into the reaction vessel. The piperine was in this liquid portion of the reaction mixture. The condensate was filtered away from the black pepper and reduced to a yellow, powder residue under a stream of nitrogen and a hot water bath. The residue was dissolved in potassium hydroxide and ethanol and then precipitated with the addition of DI water. The precipitant was filtered away and this concluded the isolation of the crude piperine product. The purification of piperine was done by recrystallizing the crude product in a hexanes/acetone solvent mixture and the crystals filtered away from …show more content…

Piperine has been shown in studies to reduce the risk of cancer by neutralizing free radicals within the body as well as eliminate reactive oxygen species. Both free radicals and ROS can cause cellular oxidative stress and may lead to some cancers as well as early onset of aging, and certain genetic mutations. Piperine also has the ability to stimulate the pain-sensing nerves and this gives pepper its’ pungency. Piperine also aids in digestion by triggering pancreatic and gastro digestive enzymes that will chemically break down the food that we have consumed. Piperine is such an important part of the human diet (in the form of black pepper) and because it is a natural product, there are fewer side effects associated with piperine as a medicine. Natural products as medicine are so important because they allow pharmaceutical companies to research their effects without so many associated risks and can lead to the development of synthetic, modern pharmaceuticals based on the characterization of the natural products. The research of natural, medicinal products leads to many medical

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