The purpose of the present study is to compare soxhlet apparatus extraction with double bypass sidearm soxhlet apparatus extraction with respect to extraction time, extraction cycle, yield of crude piperine and volume of solvent used. Methanol is used as the extracting solvent due to its higher sol- ubilizing capacity.Crude piperine is isolated using column chromatography.
Commercial grade sample of P. nigrum was purchased from super market, Yerkaud, Salem, India. P. nigrum fruit berries were dried and ground to yield powder of 100 mesh size parti- cles and were directly subjected to extraction. Methanol, hex- ane, petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, diethyl ether and silica gel (60–120 mesh for CC and 200–400 mesh for TLC) were purchased from S.D. Fine Chemicals, Mumbai, India.