Can Piperine be distilled under high vacuum? it decomposes before boiling at regular pressures according to Wikipedia.
Maybe
The melting point is listed as anywhere between 106-130C depending on where you look. Distilling materials that are solid at room temperature takes
finesse. They love to plug condensers, plug columns, plug takeoffs, anything they can. And the higher above room temperature the more issues. At
these sorts of temperatures you would likely need heat tape over a good chunk or your setup and to throttle your condenser. And even then it would be
difficult to prevent plugging. But me, I love distilling materials that are solids at room temperature, it's a passion of mine.
However, that's not the only thing working against you. Granted I only did a quick Google search, but usually boiling point is only a little harder
to find than form (i.e., solid, liquid, or gas). But no dice, even obscure boiling points under vacuum are fair game for an MSDS so it was strange
not to even see that odd-ball boiling point at 10^-7 torr or something of that nature. But that does not mean it's impossible, as I said before it
would already be a bit of a pain to distill if it came over at normal temperatures.
What some places did list was a theoretical boiling point (which can also be found in some modeling software to consumers, my ChemDraw at work will
predict boiling points). And this is.... just South of 500C. But don't despair, using a nomograph there is a slim chance of hope at around 0.3 mm Hg
(hey, let's be realistic here) you might be able to distill your piperine at about 200C. Of course if you can get a diffusion pump I would be
certain that you could distill it (or perhaps even sublime it) but then again if you had access to a diffusion pump you probably wouldn't be asking
this question to begin with.
