Probing molecular dynamics with hyperpolarized ultrafast Laplace NMR using a low-field, single-sided magnet

• Published in: Chemical science (Cambridge) 2018-07, Vol.9 (28), p.6143-6149
• Main Authors: King, Jared N, Fallorina, Alfredo, Yu, Justin, Zhang, Guannan, Telkki, Ville-Veikko, Hilty, Christian, Meldrum, Tyler
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry; Correlation analysis; Cost analysis; Fluid dynamics; Low cost; Molecular chains; Molecular dynamics; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Nuclear spin; Organic chemistry; Sensitivity analysis; Signal to noise ratio; Spatial data; Water chemistry
• ISSN: 2041-6520; 2041-6539
• DOI: 10.1039/c8sc01329b

Laplace NMR (LNMR) offers deep insights on diffusional and rotational motion of molecules. The so-called "ultrafast" approach, based on spatial data encoding, enables one to carry out a multidimensional LNMR experiment in a single scan, providing from 10 to 1000-fold acceleration of the experiment. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of ultrafast diffusion- relaxation correlation ( - ) measurements with a mobile, low-field, relatively low-cost, single-sided NMR magnet. We show that the method can probe a broad range of diffusion coefficients (at least from 10 to 10 m s ) and reveal multiple components of fluids in heterogeneous materials. The single-scan approach is demonstrably compatible with nuclear spin hyperpolarization techniques because the time-consuming hyperpolarization process does not need to be repeated. Using dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP), we improved the NMR sensitivity of water molecules by a factor of 10 relative to non-hyperpolarized NMR in the 0.3 T field of the single-sided magnet. This enabled us to acquire a - map in a single, 22 ms scan, despite the low field and relatively low mole fraction (0.003) of hyperpolarized water. Consequently, low-field, hyperpolarized ultrafast LNMR offers significant prospects for advanced, mobile, low-cost and high-sensitivity chemical and medical analysis.