Investigation of commercial lecithin by 31P NMR in a ternary CUBO solvent

Many different ways have been devised over the years for analyzing phospholipids in soln. by 31P NMR. One promising method entails the use of the so-called CUBO solvent, a ternary mixt. of DMF, triethylamine and guanidinium hydrochloride. As this interesting system seems to have been overlooked in the literature, we present here a study on the quantification of phospholipids and lysophospholipids contained in 10 samples of com. lecithin using the CUBO/31P NMR method. Cluster anal. and principal component anal. of the NMR data showed clear differences among the samples according to the actual lecithin producer. Multivariate anal. of the chem. and phys. parameters of the samples confirmed these differences.