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Mobile phase compensation to improve NMR spectral properties during solvent gradients
Dimuthu A Jayawickrama1, Andrew M Wolters, Jonathan V Sweedler
1Department of Chemistry and the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Abstract:
A solvent compensation method based on flow injection analysis is used to obtain high quality nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra during solvent gradients. Using a binary solvent system containing D2O and CD3OD, NMR line broadening and chemical shift changes are observed with a 10% methanol per min solvent composition gradient. However, by creating a second equal but reverse gradient and combining the two solvent gradients before the NMR detector, the composition of solvent reaching the NMR flow cell is kept constant. We demonstrate a system using flow injection analysis of combining solvent gradients and show constant NMR spectral performance as a function of time as the combined flow has a constant solvent composition irrespective of the initial solvent gradient. Using this approach, methods can be developed to measure high quality NMR spectra during on-flow gradient LC-NMR experiments. The ultimate ability of this approach depends on the ability to compensate for the disturbance of the solvent gradient and reverse gradient by a pair of LC columns (the analytical and reverse gradient columns).
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