UWinChem

Thursday, May 14, 2009

A new method for 14N NMR spectroscopy

Luke O'Dell and Rob Schurko have been investigating a new method of acquiring 14N NMR spectra in the solid state, and the work is described in J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 6658–6659, DOI: 10.1021/ja901278q. 14N NMR spectrosocpy is very difficult experiment to conduct on most solid-state samples, because 14N is a quadupolar nucleus, and most cases the 14N NMR patterns are hundreds of kHz to several MHz in breadth. The new method involves the use of special pulses called WURST pulses, which are capable of sweeping wide frequency ranges, along with the collection of long echo trains to further enhance the signal to noise. They have also reported that the swept pulses actually enhance the overall S/N of the spectrum, and have dubbed the method as "DEISM" (Direct Enhancement of Integer Spin Magnetization). You can read more about Rob Schurko's research group by clicking here.

No comments: