Capsaicin has broad application prospects, but production technology is difficult

Capsaicin, also known as capsaicin, is an organic compound with the molecular formula C18H27NO3. It appears as a white crystalline powder and is insoluble in water. It mainly exists in nature in peppers and their variants of Solanaceae plants. Capsaicin has extremely high medicinal value and economic value. It is a type of high value-added material. Its main application fields include medicine, military, pesticides, feed, food, health products, etc.

Specifically, in the medical field, capsaicin has analgesic and anti-itching, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, and cardiovascular protection effects, and plays an important role in the treatment of intractable neuralgia, critical pain, skin diseases and other diseases; in the field of pesticides, capsaicin It has good contact and repellent effects on harmful organisms. It is a new type of biological pesticide. In the field of feed, capsaicin can improve the digestive function of animals, promote appetite, and improve diarrhea and inflammatory diseases. It can be used as a food stomachic agent in the feed field. ; In the field of health care, capsaicin can accelerate fat burning and enhance fat metabolism, and is one of the important raw materials for weight loss health products.

Capsaicin has broad application prospects. As its application fields continue to expand, its market demand continues to increase. According to the“China Capsaicin Market Feasibility Research Report 2023-2028” published by the Industrial Research Center, domestic capsaicin production in 2022 The market demand has exceeded 600 tons, but the output is only more than 200 tons. At present, there is a large supply and demand gap in my country’s capsaicin market. The main reason is that the production technology is difficult, resulting in its output being always at a low level.

The main production methods of capsaicin include natural extraction, chemical synthesis, and biological cell culture. Among them, the biological cell culture method is technically difficult. At present, the production methods of capsaicin in China are mainly natural extraction methods and chemical synthesis methods. The natural extraction method of capsaicin is a process that uses peppers as raw materials and goes through dissolution, salting out, extraction and other steps to produce capsaicin; the chemical synthesis method uses capsaicin as raw materials and goes through dissolution, acidification, ion exchange, elution, crystallization and other steps. Processes such as generating capsaicin.

However, because the capsaicin content in peppers is extremely low and involves a lot of complex costs, the extraction technology has disadvantages such as complex extraction and separation processes, low purity of the product, and high energy consumption. At the same time, the capsaicin synthesis technology also has the disadvantages of low yield in the reduction step and condensation. The reaction has disadvantages such as competitive reaction and high production costs. Therefore, it is currently difficult to produce capsaicin in my country and the output is low. In the future, capsaicin-related companies will need to accelerate the improvement of their technical level and promote the rapid development of the market.

Industrial Analysts People said that capsaicin belongs to the deep processing field of peppers. At present, many domestic companies have deployed in this field, and the main companies include Shun Fu Technology Group, Jinta Co., Ltd., Zhengyi New Materials, Shanghe Biotechnology, Puhua Pharmaceutical, Luye Pharmaceutical, etc. Capsaicin is a new type of high value-added material with both medical and economic value, and its application prospects are broad. However, due to the high technical difficulty, the capsaicin market has not yet been fully developed, and the overall market capacity is still relatively small. In the future, industry development requires increased investment in research and development to expand market application space.