Effective phospholipid removal from plasma samples by solid phase extraction with the use of copper (II) modified silica gel cartridges.

The new sorbent for solid phase extraction (SPE), based on silica gel modified with a copper (II), was obtained and its application for phospholipids removal from the human plasma was tested. SPE column conditioning requirements, the volume of the plasma, the composition of the elution solvent were all established. The efficacy of the removal of phospholipids was compared for different methods such as standard protein precipitation or HybridSPE Phospholipid Ultra and HybridSPE-PPT. The sample clean-up was verified by mass spectrometry (MS) and by monitoring of chromatograms in the region between 190nm and 400nm. The Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy FT-IR and confocal Raman microscopy were used to evaluating the silica gel modifications and to show the structure of lipids confined in the silica pores.