Proton Relaxometry of Long-Lived Spin Order

A study of long-lived spin order in chlorothiophene carboxylates at both high and low magnetic fields is presented. Careful sample preparation (removal of dissolved oxygen in solution, chelating of paramagnetic impurities, reduction of convection) allows one to obtain very long-lived singlet order of the two coupled protons in chlorothiophene derivatives, having lifetimes of about 130 s in D₂ O and 240 s in deuterated methanol, which are much longer than the T₁ -relaxation times (18 and 30 s, respectively, at a field $$ =9.4 T). In protonated solvents the relaxation times become shorter, but the lifetime is still substantially longer than $$ . In addition, long-lived coherences are shown to have lifetimes as long as 30 s. Thiophene derivatives can be used as molecular tags to study slow transport, slow dynamics and slow chemical processes, as has been shown in recent years.