Start Date
April 2026
Location
3rd floor - Library
Abstract
Capsaicin is the chemical compound found in chili peppers that gives them their pungent flavor and has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Hot Ones is a talk show streamed on YouTube where celebrities are interviewed while eating increasingly spicy hot wings. Curiously, most celebrities find the 8th hot sauce the hottest. It seems that the Scoville ratings are not consistent with the perceived heat of the different sauces. Therefore, we wanted to determine how to measure capsaicin concentration in hot sauces and investigate various methods by which capsaicin can be extracted from the sauces. Part of this project will be to understand the underlying physics behind the manufacture, behavior, and operation of the HPLC. The other will be determining limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of capsaicin using our instrumentation and evaluating the most efficient method of extraction; pre-drying the sauces in an oven or using a direct ethanol extraction from the hot sauce. So far, the direct extraction of the hot sauce seems to work better but we are still optimizing this procedure. In the future, results from these experiments could yield efficient methods of extracting and quantifying capsaicin from hot sauce.
Capsaicin quanitifcation methods of various of various hot sauces
3rd floor - Library
Capsaicin is the chemical compound found in chili peppers that gives them their pungent flavor and has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Hot Ones is a talk show streamed on YouTube where celebrities are interviewed while eating increasingly spicy hot wings. Curiously, most celebrities find the 8th hot sauce the hottest. It seems that the Scoville ratings are not consistent with the perceived heat of the different sauces. Therefore, we wanted to determine how to measure capsaicin concentration in hot sauces and investigate various methods by which capsaicin can be extracted from the sauces. Part of this project will be to understand the underlying physics behind the manufacture, behavior, and operation of the HPLC. The other will be determining limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of capsaicin using our instrumentation and evaluating the most efficient method of extraction; pre-drying the sauces in an oven or using a direct ethanol extraction from the hot sauce. So far, the direct extraction of the hot sauce seems to work better but we are still optimizing this procedure. In the future, results from these experiments could yield efficient methods of extracting and quantifying capsaicin from hot sauce.
