Simultaneous Quantification of H₂O₂ and Organic Hydroperoxides by ¹H NMR Spectroscopy

Due to similar reactivity of organic hydroperoxides (OHPs), an HPLC separation step is typically required for their indirect (chemical) quantification in mixtures. The high sensitivity of chemical shifts to chemical structure makes NMR an ideal tool for the simultaneous quantification of OHPs in mixtures, but the concentration of these analytes in the samples of interest is usually well below the sensitivity of standard NMR experiments. This sensitivity problem can be mitigated by taking advantage of the fact that the z magnetization of the H₂O₂ resonance recovers at the rate of hydrogen exchange with water, which is significantly faster than longitudinal relaxation, thus enabling very fast scanning for signal-to-noise enhancement. An adaptation of the E-BURP2 pulse is described that suppresses the water signal by more than 4 orders of magnitude, yielding uniform excitation of peroxide signals without interference of the ca. 10⁸-fold stronger H₂O resonance. We demonstrate the method for a mixture of OHPs and report the chemical shifts for multiple OHPs that are of interest in atmospheric chemistry. As shown for hydroxymethyl hydroperoxide, the chemical decay of OHPs can be tracked directly by NMR spectroscopy.