A PREFERRED SOLVENT SYSTEM FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF SOYBEAN PHOSPHOLIPIDS WITH EVAPORATIVE LIGHT-SCATTERING DETECTION

Normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography separations of pho spholipids (PL) depend heavily on the variation in mobile phases. Inco rporation of pure tetrahydrofuran to a mobile phase of chloroform, met hanol, and ammonium hydroxide improved the separation of polar phospho lipids. However, impurities were often found to be present in tetrahyd rofuran that caused severe peak interferences with PL analytes. The us e of a common chromatographic solvent tert.-butyl methyl ether, in lie u of tetrahydrofuran in mobile phases, eliminated problems associated with solvent contamination and yielded reproducible results. The modif ied method has been applied for the quantitative analysis of phospholi pids in crude soybean oils.