Extraction of piperine from Piper longum using ultrasound

Efforts were made to enhance the yield of piperine using ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) from fruit of Piper longum. The effects of various factors such as solvent, extraction time, solid to solvent ratio, duty cycle, ultrasound frequency, ultrasound power and temperature on the yield of piperine were investigated and optimized. The maximum yield of piperine (5.8 mg/g) from Piper longum powder was obtained at optimal UAE conditions such as, ethanol as extracting solvent, extraction time 18 min, solid to solvent ratio 1:10, ultrasound power 125 W, 80% duty cycle, ultrasound frequency 25 kHz and temperature 50 °C. The experimental results revealed the advantage of UAE over traditional method of batch extraction and solvent extraction. The extraction time is reduced from 8 h of batch solvent extraction and 4 h of Soxhlet to 18 min in UAE with enhanced extraction yield of piperine. Extraction yields of piperine obtained from Soxhlet extraction and batch extraction methods were found to be 1.67 mg/g and 0.98 mg/g, respectively, which were much lower than UAE optimized results. Hence, ultrasound assisted extraction of natural phytoconstituents will diminish the problem of lower extractability and higher extraction time over traditional methods.