Determination of capsaicinoids from dried pepper fruits by Fast-Gas Chromatography

The present paper describes the application of Fast-gas chromatography (GC) to quantify the capsaicinoid content in dried pepper fruit with the aim to calculate the Scoville heat values (SHVs) for routine quality control. Fast-GC was used to analyse various samples of dried pepper fruits with a wide distribution of SHVs. The calibration curves demonstrated a polynomial model in the range of 3.0-195.0 μg mL-1 for capsaicin and 2.6-105.0 μg mL-1 for dihydrocapsaicin and nordihydrocapsaicin, with correlation coefficients of 0.996 and 0.997, respectively. The data showed an intraday relative standard deviation (RSD) <5% and an interday relative repeatability standard deviation (RSDr) <6%.