We're looking for some help for extracting vit. c from peppers for an advanced higher biology project. Looking for a basic procedure if possible, we are then going to use titration to quantify how much vit. c in different colours of peppers.
Vitamin C is water soluble, so all you need do is crush or grind the plant material and then shake it up with water. A common method is to grind the material with some clean sand in a mortar with a pestle. The material can then be filtered or centrifuged to get rid of the debris. The vitamin C will be in the water.
A possible problem (depending on what you are going to do with the solution) is colour in the extract and you may need to experiment to see how big a problem this is. (Coconut, kiwi fruit, white grapes, dragon fruit, gooseberries are all fairly 'white' or colourless.)
The SAPS Team
PS. You will find one assay method here.