Characterization of peppercorn, pepper oil, and pepper oleoresin by vibrational spectroscopy methods.

NIR-FT-Raman as well as ATR-IR and NIR spectroscopy in combination with efficient chemometric algorithms was applied for rapid determination of piperine in black and white ground pepper and green whole pepper berries as well as pepper oleoresins. Most of the well-resolved Raman signals detected in the spectra of pepper and the related oleoresins can be assigned to piperine, which is known to be the main pungent principle in these products. On the basis of the specific key bands of piperine, also selective Raman mappings were successfully performed to determine the in situ distribution of the alkaloid in the whole green berry and the dried peppercorn as well. It was found that piperine occurs more or less in the whole perisperm of the green fruit. Furthermore, the content and composition of the volatile fraction in various pepper samples were determined by applying the mentioned vibrational spectroscopy techniques. Whereas only NIRS measurements present sufficient reliability to predict the main essential oil substances directly in ground black and white pepper, all spectroscopy methods applied in this study can be used to analyze individual terpenoids in the hydrodistilled oil. It can be assumed that some of the new, efficient vibrational spectroscopy methods have the potential to replace the standard analysis procedures presently applied for the quality control of peppercorns, pepper extracts, and pepper oil.