Determination of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in Capsicum anuum and related products by capillary electrophoresis with a mixed surfactant system

An easy, rapid, sensitive, and cheap capillary electrophoresis (CE) method based a mixed surfactant system formed by sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and polyoxyethylene sorbitan monolaurate (Tween 20) as modifier in the buffer was reported. Quantitative analysis of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in Capsicum anuum, pepper sauce and porous capsicum plaster was demonstrated. After conducting a series of optimisations, baseline separation was obtained for the analytes within 5 min under the optimum conditions (15 mM sodium tetraborate–0.05% (v/v) Tween 20–2.2 mM SDS buffer (pH 10.1), 20 kV voltage, 214 nm UV detection). The method resulted in excellent linearity, with r2 of regression equation of 0.9994 and 0.9996 for capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin, respectively. Recoveries were in the range 90–107% and 92–109% for capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin, respectively.