Analytical Instrument Documents

Solid-state NMR is a useful tool to elucidate protein structures. Although fully 13C and 15N labelled samples are required, solid-state NMR provides complementary or unique information that is not accessible by other typical methods. For example, there are, in principle, no upper or lower limits to molecular weight in solid-state NMR, unlike solution NMR and cryo EM. In addition, solid-state NMR is a very sensitive probe of local dynamics. One of the stumbling block of solid-state NMR is sample amount. Indeed, 20 – 50 mg of fully labelled (expensive!) samples are required for 3.2 mm / 4 mm MAS rotors. However, the recent developments allowing MAS rates above 70 kHz change the situation completely. [1] Indeed, the 0.75 mm (1 mm) MAS rotors used for fast MAS experiments (up to 120 (80) kHz) only require 290 (800) nL of sample, enabling solid-state NMR measurements on sub-milligram amounts of sample. Another great advantage of fast MAS is the averaging out of most of the anisotropic interactions, allowing the use of low power schemes (decoupling, recoupling, cross-polarization etc.), which in turns avoids sample heating. High resolution 1H spectra become readily available in these conditions, especially for microcrystalline proteins. This is the biggest advantage of fast MAS, since 1H detection dramatically improves sensitivity compared to traditional 13C detection. As a consequence, fast MAS solid-state NMR is now a versatile tool to study the structure and dynamics of biomolecules, for which the first step is sequence-specific resonance assignment. To this end, requisite experiments for sequential backbone and sidechain assignments are well established. [2] Here, we introduce the tool box available for the Delta software together with examples on fully protonated Het-s (226-280) protein.

JEOL 2mm MAS probe enables MA Spinning at nearly twice MAS speed of the conventional 3.2mm and 4mm MAS probe with 20 times the sample volume of the 1mm MAS probe. An attractive application of the 2mm MAS probe is 19F NMR. Strong 19F homonuclear dipolar coupling and wide chemical shift range cause a series of spinning side band (SSB) which make it difficult to analyze 19F spectra obtained by using the conventional 3.2mm and 4mm probes. The 2mm probe can achieve 40kHz MAS speeds, the resulting 19F spectra will had small well managed SSB’s. Here, we introduce 19F solid state NMR spectra of Nafion known as a solid polymer electrolyte for fuel cells. Fig.1 shows 19F MAS spectra of Nafion at various MAS speeds. 40kHz MAS gives a clear 19F spectrum without overlapping of SSBs whereas overlap occur between center bands and their SSBs at MAS speeds less than 40kHz. Moreover, the much greater sensitivity of the 2mm probe than the 1mm probe enables direct observation of low sensitive nuclei such as 13C. Thus, 13C{19F} CPMAS( Fig.2) and 13C-19F 2D-HETCOR (Fig.3) can easily be obtained.

JEOL 2mm HXMAS probe is a multi-use probe capable of high speed magic angle spinning (MAS) up to 40kHz and high sensitivity measurements. It is not only available for general use in standard 13C measurements of organic materials, but also for highly sensitive 1H indirect detection utilizing high resolution 1H NMR. Since it is also suitable for 19F measurements where spinning side bands are likely to appear (JEOL application note: NM180013 ) and MQMAS measurements of quadrupole nucleus, the 2mm probe is strongly recommended probe that can handle a variety of measurements as a single probe.

JEOL offers a full range of Magic-Angle-Spinning (MAS) probes and tools matched to a wide variety of solid-state NMR applications. JEOL MAS probes feature sample tube diameters to match the user sample and sensitivity needs. JEOL narrow bore MAS probes offer improved stability for high-speed spinning or for very large volumes. The JNM-ECZ Series NMR Spectrometer automatically updates the relevant spectrometer settings for all NMR probes for fast and easy switching between solids and liquids NMR operation.

1H, in principle, is very useful nucleus to investigate atomic-resolution structures and dynamics due to its high abundance (>99%) and gyromagnetic ratio (600 MHz at 14.1T). In fact 1H is the first choice of nucleus in solution NMR. On the other hand, 1H NMR of rigid solids is much less common. This is because 1H solid-state NMR gives very broad (~50 kHz) and featureless spectra (Fig 1a) due to strong 1H-1H dipolar coupling, which is dynamically averaged out in solution. Magic angle spinning (MAS) removes the broadening to the first order, but is not enough to achieve high resolution 1H NMR at moderate MAS rate (Fig 1b). Tremendous efforts were made to overcome this issue from the early dates of solid-state NMR towards high-resolution 1H NMR [1]. Most of them combine MAS with sophisticated 1H pulses which is dubbed CRAMPS (combined rotation and multiple pulse spectroscopy). Nowadays very fast MAS > 60 kHz can be used to achieve high-resolution 1H solid-state NMR (Fig 1c) [2]. However, the traditional CRAMPS is still useful as that can be performed with very conventional solid-state NMR equipment, for example 4 mm MAS probe with a 400 MHz spectrometer. Moreover, wPMLG at moderate MAS rate often overwhelms fast MAS in terms of resolution. In this note, we will describe tutorial guidance to optimize experimental parameters for CRAMPS.

Multidimensional correlation NMR spectroscopies, which provides inter-nuclear proximity/connectivity, play a crucial role to probe the atomic resolution structures. Especially, 1H-1H homonuclear correlation spectroscopy is quite useful source of information because of high abundance (>99%) and gyromagnetic ratio, thus resulting in strong inter nuclear interactions. Thanks to the development of high resolution 1H solid-state NMR, now it is feasible to observe 1H-1H correlation high resolution solid-state NMR [1]. There are two distinctive categories; 1) single quantum (SQ)/SQ correlation and 2) double quantum (DQ)/SQ correlations. In this note we introduce 2D 1H SQ/ 1H SQ and 1H DQ/ 1H SQ correlation spectroscopy to probe the internuclear proximity using high-resolution 1H solid-state NMR techniques.

Lithium ion secondary batteries using spinel-type lithium titanium oxide (LTO) as the negative electrode material are excellent in safety and cycle characteristics due to their chemical stability, and have already been put into practical use.

Here, we combine ED and solid-state NMR through the first principle quantum computation with the NMR crystallography approach for crystalline structure solution. The method, electron and NMR nano-crystallography, can be applied to nano- to micro-crystals even for mixture samples.

Solid state NMR is a powerful tool to obtain information in the crystalline state which would be lost in the solution state.

The low oral bioavailability of a drug due to its poor aqueous solubility is a major challenge for pharmaceutical development. Solid dispersion (SD), where the amorphous drug is dispersed into the polymer matrix, is one of the useful approaches to improve the aqueous solubility. However, thermodynamically unstable nature of an amorphous drug increases its susceptibility to recrystallize upon storage, which, in turn, reduces its solubility and dissolution. Therefore, design of thermodynamically stable SD is required.