Question

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!.....
What happens when capsaicin is extracted from red chillies and then is done chromatography?????????

Answer 1

I'm assuming you're talking the use chromatography as a separation technique that is used to extract capsaicin from chili peppers. (the compound that is responsible for the spiciness in peppers) The overall chemical structure of capsaicin is hydrophobic (water fearing) which means that this can extract by exploiting the solubility of capsaicin.

Assuming a Liquid chromatography technique. You can extract capsaicin by using a highly polar mobile phase that will separate all polar elements from non polar elements in the chilipepper. A simple way to explain this separation is to think about an oil and water mixture being subjected to absorption by a paper towel. We want to separate the oil from the water. If the towel absorbs polar elements faster (water etc) the speed of this absorption will be greater than that of the oily counterpart, thus by absorbing the water components of the mixture faster than the oil component, separation of the mixture can be acheived.

Chromotagraphy is generally used as a analytical technique, separation can be achieved but usally with HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) and GC (Gas chromatography) techniques.

Here is a MSDS on capsaicin