Heteronuclear correlation experiments of ²³Na-²⁷Al in rotating solids

We demonstrated that the heteronuclear correlation experiments between two quadrupolar nuclei, ²³Na and ²⁷Al, with close Larmor frequencies can be achieved via D-HMQC and D-RINEPT approaches by using a diplexer connected to a conventional probe in magic-angle-spinning solid-state NMR. Low-power heteronuclear dipolar recoupling schemes can be applied on ²³Na or ²⁷Al to establish polarization transfers between the central transitions of ²³Na and ²⁷Al for a model compound, NaAlO₂. Further, we showed a practical implementation of the two dimensional ²³Na-²⁷Al dipolar-based heteronuclear correlation experiment on a heterogeneous catalyst, Na₂CO₃/γ-Al₂O₃. This allows to determine spatial proximities between different ²³Na and ²⁷Al sites, thus the surface Na species adjacent to octahedral-coordination Al can be clearly discriminated.