First you have to know the nature of your solute in the aqueous phase and then try to choose your solvent. There are many solvents but the best one will be decided based upon what you want to separate from aqueous solution.

If you use hydrophilic silica, there will be most probably no way to remove the hydrophilic compounds from the column material. The interaction solid phase - reagent may be much stronger then the interaction solvent - reagent. You could try, but for hydrophilic compounds, reverse phase is usually used. There are different column materials available, e.g. C18, C8, aromatic... depends on the "hydrophilicity" of the sample. Normal phase is common for hydrophobic compounds. Just search for the principle of HPLC or TLC, you'll get a lot suggestions for solid phases & solvent mixtures.