Financiering FWO Hercules: Enabling Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for the characterization of small to medium-sized organic molecules at VUB

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a core analytical technique for structure analysis in chemistry. It uses extremely strong magnetic fields in combination with radiofrequency pulses to manipulate the magnetic field of individual atomic nuclei into revealing clues on their surrounding molecular structure. Through various structure dependent parameters a multitude of windows are provided through which key information becomes available regarding individual molecular structure, size, shape and dynamics, all in a non-destructive fashion. As a result, NMR is indisputably THE core technique to identify or validate the structure of organic molecules, and submission of detailed analysis is an absolute prerequisite whenever publishing newly identified, designed and/or synthesized (bio)organic structures in peer-reviewed international publications. The NMR equipment available to chemists at the VUB dates to 1999 (250 MHz) and 2005 (500 MHz) and is now well beyond the end-of-life cycle support guaranteed by the supplier. In addition, the electronics is outdated preventing application of new techniques for organic structure analysis. We propose their replacement by one state-of-the-art 400 MHz NMR spectrometer, thereby meeting the daily needs of the Research Group of Organic Chemistry (ORGC), but also serving intramural research groups active in, for example, materials chemistry/science and biomedical fields deploying small to medium-sized (bio)molecules.