Thermal perturbation of NMR properties in small polar and non-polar molecules

Water is an important constituent in an abundant number of chemical systems; however, its presence complicates the analysis of in situ ¹H MAS NMR investigations due to water's ease of solidification and vaporization, the large changes in mobility, affinity for hydrogen bonding interactions, etc., that are reflected by dramatic changes in temperature-dependent chemical shielding. To understand the evolution of the signatures of water and other small molecules in complex environments, this work explores the thermally-perturbed NMR properties of water in detail by in situ MAS NMR over a wide temperature range. Our results substantially extend the previously published temperature-dependent ¹H and ¹⁷O chemical shifts, linewidths, and spin-lattice relaxation times over a much wider range of temperatures and with significantly enhanced thermal resolution. The following major results are obtained: Hydrogen bonding is clearly shown to weaken at elevated temperatures in both ¹H and ¹⁷O spectra, reflected by an increase in chemical shielding. At low temperatures, transient tetrahedral domains of H-bonding networks are evidenced and the observation of the transition between solid ice and liquid is made with quantitative considerations to the phase change. The ¹H chemical shift properties in other small polar and non-polar molecules have also been described over a range of temperatures, showing the dramatic effect hydrogen bonding perturbation on polar species. Gas phase species are observed and chemical exchange between gas and liquid phases is shown to play an important role on the observed NMR shifts. The results disclosed herein lay the foundation for a clear interpretation of complex systems during the increasingly popular in situ NMR characterization at elevated temperatures and pressures for studying chemical systems.