Stage extraction of capsaicinoids and red pigments from fresh red pepper (Capsicum) fruits with ethanol as solvent

A method for stage extraction of capsaicinoids and red pigments from fresh red peppers (FRPs) was developed in this work. Firstly, capsaicinoids were extracted from FRPs without any drying process by 40%–50% ethanol. Then red colorants without piquancy were extracted from the residues after removal of capsaicinoids using 95% ethanol as solvent with the conditions of 90 °C of temperature of water bath, 4 mL/g of ratio of solvent to material and 120 min of extraction time. The yield of red pigments were 89.8% of total content of red colorants in FRPs, which is about 2.2 times that of dry red peppers (DRPs) dried from equivalent FRPs. Compared with conventional methods, the new processes were simple, but gave a high yield of red pigments without remain of toxic solvent.