Determination of phospholipids in dairy products by SPE/HPLC/ELSD

The aim of this work was to evaluate the performance of different methods for both milk lipid extraction and phospholipids separation. As far as the lipid extraction procedure is concerned, the Folch method showed a higher phospholipid recovery with respect to the Rose-Gottlieb method. Different SPE cartridges and solvent phases were tested to carry out the separation of phospholipids from fat. The yield of extraction was evaluated by isolating phospholipids from both milk fat and synthetic fat; Standard Addition Method was applied as well. The isolation of the phospholipids by SPE silica column and subsequent analysis by HPLC/ELSD was shown to be an accurate and reproducible analytical method for the determination of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin in milk fat extracted by Folch method.