I have recently been forced into moving the blog site to a new server. The entire blog history has been placed in a single update. Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.

Below are the entries from November 2005- September 2006

September 27, 2006

Interactive NMR Frequency Map With IUPAC NMR Data

A very useful NMR frequency/receptivity map from Alexej Jerschow at New York University – Interactive Map and Table

 

Excellent Article on “Mobilizing Magnetic Resonance” from Physics World

An excellent view on the latest new technologies appearing on the scene of mobile magnetic resonance. Though the review is fairly thorough in the “new technologies”, it does not mention the mobile permanent magnet based spectrometers currently availbale from Process NMR Associates. I don’t know why traditional mobile NMR instrumentation is repeatedly ignored in this arena. The perception is out there that NMR will always be expensive to buy, maintain and operate. The truth of the matter is that high-resolution NMR instrumentation should cost less than $100K and low field relaxometers should cost below $30K. Automation is possible for all aspects of NMR operation from locking, shimming, pulse sequence calibration, gain settings, and post processing procedures. I’d love to hear comment from people on this as I’ve been scratching my head for years as to why people aren’t interested in low field spectrometers anymore for undergraduate and industrial applications.

September 25, 2006

NMR of Earwax

Yet another masterpiece from tenderbutton – NMR of earwax.

September 19, 2006

EUROMAR 2007 – Magnetic Resonance Conference

The EUROMAR 2007 magnetic resonance conference will be held in Tarragona, Spain, July 1-6 at the Tarragona Trade-Fair and Congress Centre. Satellite meetings will be held on July 6.

September 15, 2006

SMASH Conference 2006: Multi-Sample MAS Probe

I was at the SMASH conference in Burlington Vermont earlier this week and the presentation of the week in my opinion was the multi-sample MAS probe poster by Nelson et al. This is a probe based on a patent (6,937,020) filed by Professor Eric Munson’s NMR group at the University of Kansas, and built by David Lewis of Revolution NMR. The concept involves stacking multiple MAS rotor housings in the probe head and then shuttling them into the central sweet spot of the magnet for acquisition via a pneumatic device attached at the base of the probe. The RF is switched between independent RF inputs and each housing has an independent tune/match capability. The idea is to increase throughput by allowing extra acquisitions to be obtained on other samples during the relaxation delays of the independent experiments.An excellent video demonstration is available on the webpage dedicated to the probe, as well as references to the patent and the journal article covering the development (“Multiple-sample probe for solid-state NMR studies of pharmaceuticals”, Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance 29 (2006), 204 – 213). Commercial release is expected in 2007.

July 28, 2006

New CAPP NMR Method – Olefin Content of Crude Oils, Condensates, and Diluents by 1H NMR

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has produced a test method to quantify olefins in crude oils, condenates and diluents. The method is particularly aimed at heavy oils and bitumens and their products that are not amenable to traditional olefin analysis. The method is published at the following link. We have developed many methods similar to this and have the ability to quantify and speciate the olefins present in the sample. The current CAPP method developed by the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association (CCQTP) can be used to obtain total olefin content. Further NMR analysis and a few other experiments would allow some more detailed olefin chemistry distributions to be determined as well as observe the presence of conjugated diolefins that would be particularly troublesome in the processing of these materials. 1H NMR spectroscopy can be used very effectively to obtain many chemical and physical properties of crudes, heavy crudes, bitumen, and the distillate products that are produced by these materials. 1H NMR spectral correlation with these properties by PLS or non-linear PLS regression can yield extremely robust models, and for the chemical properties much more detailed chemical structure information can be obtained fro combining 13C NMR data with 1H NMR results.

CCQTP is an association with members that span multiple segments of the Canadian oil industry -it’s history, mission, and membership can be found at the site.

On a related note an excellent technical site dealing with crude oil quality issues cane be found at the Crude Oil Quality Group website, which is a consortium with the following membership, dedicated to developing test methods and quality standards for crude oil trading that go well beyond the traditional gravity and sulfur measurements currently used. There are many additives, processing fluids, corrosive materials that can be found in crude oils that can cause processing issues for the buyer who purchases simply based on density and sulfur. The group has made public much of it’s meeting agenda archives and the presentations given at those meetings. It is an interesting read for those interested in petroleum chemistry issues.

At PNA we have been developing some high field and low field NMR techniques, looking at chemistry and relaxation in crude oils with naphthenic acid and corrosion issues. We would be interested in hearing from anyone interested in woprking with us to develop a relatively straight forward method for NAN and TAN analysis by NMR methods. 

Quantitative NMR

Found and interesting site touting quantitative NMR as a new concept….seems strange as 99% of the NMR work I have done is considered quantitative. There is a perception out there that 13C NMR is always qualitative. This has been confirmed to me in conversations with organic chemistry professors who will perform quantitative 1H NMR all day long and even justify higher magnetic field instruments based on lack of resolution in 1H data as they have the perception that 13C is purely qualitative and don’t think of the superior resolution and chemical shift information present in 13C spectra. The website is at qnmr.com, and contains an excellent petroleum chemistry example of the development of quantitative 13C NMR for aromaticity determination by Joe Ray, ex Amoco NMR researcher.

There is also an excellent link to a paper on the quantitative NMR of natural products.

Excellent Solid-State NMR Overview at Durham University

There is an excellent overview of solid-state NMR at my alma mater Durham Univeristy in the UK. The page can be found at the following link.

July 21, 2006

What a day! Took my NMR home with me at the end of the day !

Yesterday started typically, ran a few 1H NMR for some customers, developed a low-field NMR method for diesel and kerosene hydrogen content correlated to aromaticity, try to run some fibers for moisture and spin-finish. Suddenly 5:30 loomed, the Mrs called to ask when I’d home for dinner ….. so rather than incur the wrath of the spouse by continuing late with the work, I simply picked up my NMR and went home with it. The new SpinTrack 20 MHz system is essentially a desktop computer sized console with a 6×6×6 inch magnet weighing 14 lbs. The whole shabang runs off a USB connection to my laptop. Thus …. I spent today completing the work from the comfort of my home office … Beautiful ! Tomorrow I might just carry the system upstairs, put it on the coffe table and acquire some more data while watching the Tour de France on TV. Not many people can say they take their NMR machines home with them at night. This could become a regular thing for me.

July 19, 2006

Interesting News on High Temperature Superconductor Systems

Surfing the web I came across a surprising announcement … it appears that Progression Systems is interested in developing a 80 MHz high temperature superconductor electromagent system to utilize in their process NMR business. Does this mean that Progression will be entering the high resolution NMR domain or raising the resonance frequency and sensitivity of nuclei other than proton (27Al, 23Na, 31P, etc.)? Below is the news bulletin from Industrial Research Ltd (News Bulletin found at: http://www.irl.cri.nz/newsandevents/Mediareleases/joint-venture-for-hts110.aspx).

Joint venture for HTS-110

A new joint venture between HTS-110 and US company Progression Inc will provide customers with a unique high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet capability.

1 May 2006

HTS-110 Limited, an affiliated company of Industrial Research, focuses on HTS solutions for medical, scientific, energy, defence, transport and industrial markets. Progression is a world leader in the development and implementation of process Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technologies, Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) techniques, and Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) analysers for the mining, petrochemical, and polymer/polyolefin industries.

The new venture, Progression-HTS-110, will provide customers with unique high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet capability. The new series of analyser will operate at 80MHz with the field strength of 2 Tesla generated by a HTS magnet.

Target markets for the analyser will include refining applications in the oil and gas industry, educational research and development, pharmaceutical and biochemistry applications.

Chief executive of Progression, Vaughn E. Davis, says the company is looking forward to working with HTS-110 Ltd and describes the deal as the perfect complementary vehicle to extend and build on the unique strengths of Progression’s leading market position in process NMR.

Chief executive of HTS-110, Dr Sohail Choudhry, says it is a strategic move to partner with Progression and extend HTS-110’s leading-edge technology into new markets.

“HTS is an advanced and rapidly developing new technology and we look forward to using that as a key driver for expanding the marketplace with Progression.

“Progression is an innovative company and we share a similar culture – that will work to our advantage and allow us to benefit from both our unique and complementary skills.”

It is anticipated the new company will be headquartered in Houston, Texas, under the leadership of Mr. Scott Simmons.

HTS-110 is a subsidiary company of Industrial Research Ltd – it’s HTS magnet technologies are described here.

July 17, 2006

Abstracts Available for Magnetic Resonance in Food Science Meeting

The Abstracts for the Posters and Speaker Sessions of the 8th International Conference on The Application of Magnetic Resonance in Food Science (July 16-19, 2006) can be found at the following locations – Poster Abstracts and Speaker Abstracts .

July 13, 2006

Stelar Develops New Benchtop FFC Spectrometer and Forms JV Company Invento

Stelar s.r.l. has announced that it will be producing a new benchtop design for it’s Fast Field Cycling NMR product becoming available in September 2006, and also the availability of a new single board NMR console - available June 2006. the company has also formed a JV company called Invento s.r.l. which is a combination of Stelar and a business incubator at the Univerity of Torino. The mission of Invento is to further the development of FFC NMR techniques as standard methodolgies in testing laboratories and to perhaps replace other TD-NMR spectrometers.

July 11, 2006

NMR Monitoring of Magnetic Field Strength of CERN Large Hadron Collider

A group of physicists at the University of Manchester are developing NMR probe technologies to monitor the magnetic field strength inside the solenoids of the Atlas LHC at CERN. The probe technology and accompanying NMR spectrometers are described on the Manchester website.

July 3, 2006

Process NMR Paper at San Francisco ACS Meeting – September 2006

ENITechnologie will be presenting a paper on the on-line application of NMR in lube plant operation at the upcoming ACS Meeting in San Francisco

Experiencing Process MRA Industrial Lube Plant Application – Roberto Giardino1, Silvia Guanziroli1, Cinzia Passerini1, and Antonio Farina2. (1) EniTecnologie S.p.A, via Maritano, 26, San Donato M.se (MI), 20097, Italy, (2) Divisione Refining & Marketing – Raffineria di Livorno, Eni S.p.A, via Aurelia, 7, 57017 Stagno (LI), Italy

In a conventional base oil production plant the operating conditions needed to produce products at a desired specification are very sensitive to feed quality. At Livorno refinery an on-line Process Magnetic Resonance Analyzer (MRA) has been installed to identify the feedstock and product composition and properly set an advanced process control system. By using MRA it is possible to reduce the product quality give-away due to feed quality variation. In this work the industrial experience acquired is reported.

Characterization, On-Line Monitoring, and Sensing of Petroleums and Petrochemicals 8:30 AM-11:30 AM, Thursday, 14 September 2006 Sheraton Palace—Telegraph Hill

Division of Petroleum ChemistryThe 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006

June 19, 2006

Application Overview for Spin Track TD-NMR Spectrometers

Due to it’s broad versatility the Spin Track NMR Hardware supports all standard NMR routines such as AOCS Cd 16b-93, AOCS Cd 16-81, ISO 8292, IUPAC2.150 and creative scientific research. Spin Track has been successfully approved in the food and polymer industries for routine analysis. If your application is not described below please contact John Edwards for discussion. 

Solid Fat Content (SFC) Analysis
The quality of food products containing fats and oils depends on solid fat content (SFC). SFC determination is an essential measurement in the baking, confectionery, and fat industries. NMR has been established as the method for SFC determination by ISO 8292. Measurements of SFC by the Spin Track NMR analyzer can be performed quickly and accurately with great benefit for the manufacturer. 

Simultaneous Rapid-Determination of Oil and Water in Seeds
Sunflower, soybean, groundnut, rape and mustard are appreciated for their oil content, but excess of water content reduces their price. Thus, an accurate and fast determination of oil and water content is important to both manufacturers and customers. The Spin Track NMR analyzer meets ISO 10565 requirements and gives the possibility to simultaneously determine of oil and water content.

Oil/Fat and Moisture analysis in Chocolate, Powdered Milk, Cheese and other Food Products
Time of storage of food products depends strongly on moisture content. Excess moisture leads to microbiological activity and can make food consumption dangerous. Fat and moisture content also heavily  influence taste. Manufacturers are also regulated to disclose the exact information on the fat content of their products. NMR is the most rapid and exact method to determine these essential parameters. The Spin Track NMR analyzer is especially suitable for regular analysis of food quality. 

Curing Degree and Elasticity Analysis in Rubber-Type Materials

Over the past years Rheology has become widely accepted as a tool in the investigation of rubber properties. However, rheological testing equipment can  be extremely expensive and complicated. NMR is very sensitive to the structure and properties of investigated rubber materials. The Spin Track NMR-analyzer allows investigators to obtain data complementary to rheology and can also prove to be more informative. 

Moisture and Crystallinity Analysis in Polysaccharides
Polysaccharides like chitin, chitosan etc. are widely used because of inherent unique properties. Adsorbents and food bio-additions based on them require a regular check of quality. Spin Track NMR-analyzer allows investigators to obtain information about moisture, crystallinity, purity and structure of polysaccharides.

Porosity of Rock Cores/Heterogeneous Catalysts/Zeolites
The possibility of oil development can be defined more exactly in the initial stages of exploration by using NMR. Rock cores saturated by bitumen or water provide information on degree of saturation, structure of saturating compounds, porosity, and diffusion characteristics. This information allows the prediction of oil production yields. The Spin Track NMR-analyzer with a 35mm probe gives the possibility to obtain such information.

Scientific applications
The spectrometer’s Relax software allows construction of many types of NMR pulse sequences, user-defined interfaces, data processing (digital experiments filtering, fitting, Fourier and Laplace transforms) and data manipulations. Thus, customers can directly run automated standard type NMR experiments just by “pressing one button” in the program shell, or create new applications using the powerful pascal-like script language. Widely used experiments like measurements of T1 and T2 (90-tau-90, 180-tau-90, CPMG, FID, Spin Echo, Solid-Echo) are included into the Relax software as default examples. The NMR measurements can be accompanied with the high precision calibration samples and built-in software calibration procedures. Easy automatic tuning of the NMR frequency, pulse-durations, TX power and RX gain is included into the software package. 

Process NMR Associates Begins Marketing of Cutting Edge TD-NMR Spectrometer

Resonance Systems Ltd. has granted Process NMR Associates the rights to promote, market, and sell it’s NMR products and custom NMR hardware in the Americas, and Worldwide. The basic product of the company is a portable NMR-analyzer called Spin Track that can be used for many different low and high resolution NMR applications.

Spin Track meets the requirements of many relaxation and diffusion based NMR analyses:

Food industry (Solid Fat Content Analysis, Dairy Products, Oil and Moisture in Chocolate, Powdered Milk, Cheese and other food products; Oil and Moisture in seeds, Emulsion Characteristics)
Lipid Analysis – Fatty Acid Distribution
Cellulose and paper manufacturing (Moisture/Crystallinity Analysis, investigations of ageing effects)
Oil industry (rock cores analysis, oil-water, oil-water-gas, viscosity, physical property correlation, )
Polymer and rubber industry (Curing degree and elasticity analysis, polymer ageing, glass transition, amorphous/crystalline content)
Chemical industry (Density, Melting Points, Copolymer Ratios, Compatibility, Cure, Cross Linking, H or F content,
Medicine (NMR Surface Analysis of Patients, Plasma Analysis)
Environmental (Water Pollution, Forest Degradation, Soils, Fertilizers)
Fibers – Moisture and Finish Content
Pharmaceuticals (Tablet Analysis, Coatings/Components/Moisture, Hydrogen/Fluorine/Sodium Content)
Relaxation, Diffusion, Particle Size, Pore Size Distribution

Utilization of mobile NMR measurement equipment from Process NMR Associates provides the following advantages:

Reduction of expenses associated with meeting quality requirements of products
Simplicity of use in routine production measurements and in advanced laboratories for complicated analysis
Mobility of the hardware and low cost for the overall device
Non-invasive measurements of any sample
Hardware solutions for non-standard NMR applications
Permanent technical support and comprehensive scientific consulting
Fair price and absolute ease of operation!

Portable Low-Resolution NMR Analyzer

Spin Track Spectrometer

Analyzer is designed to perform:

All standard NMR applications
Development of new NMR-based techniques
Teaching quantum physics, NMR, analytical chemistry in Universities and Colleges

NMR analyzer Spin Track comprises functional parts (probes, preamplifier and duplexer, TX Power Amplifier, Sequence Generator and PC Interface, Data Acquisition System, NMR Transceiver) which can be purchased separately and used for the specific needs of an advanced customer (see example of connection assembly). Depending on the required magnet system the Spin Track can be used as NMR relaxometer or high resolution NMR spectrometer.

Basic characteristics of Spin Track analyzer:

Frequency range of the NMR spectrometer module: 5..60 MHz
Ringing time for 10 mm NMR probe is 8 ms
Probe tube diameter: up to 35 mm
Changeable preamplifiers and 50 Ohm matched duplexers with self bandwidth of 5 MHz
Customer-defined set of sensors (5, 10 and 30mm test-tube magnet systems, NMR surface sensors)
Adjustable TX output power up to 400 Watts
Adjustable RX channel gain up to 107
RX Sensitivity better than 1 mV (conditions: signal to noise ratio 3)
Adjustable digital filter bandwidth from 100 Hz up to 1 MHz
Pulse sequence length up to 64K events with resolution 100 ns
Quadrature 64Kx10-bit data acquisition system
Complete control of functions via personal computer – USB 2.0 Connectivity
Fast sensors replacement
Compatible with all Microsoft® Windows® operating systems

Software

Relax Software

The product software, Relax, is a powerful tool containing many standard NMR relaxation routines and applications, and can also be used to create new pulse-sequences, pulsed field gradients, gains and attenuations, post-processing methodolgies of considerable complexity. The built-in script language is based on a widespread Pascal syntax and is enriched with commands for fitting, Fourier and Laplace transforms, Low-pass filtering, etc. The script supports dialogue windows, static messages, user-defined diagrams, data manipulation procedures. Relax also allows direct processing of data obtained when utilizing Spin Track as a high-resolution NMR spectrometer.

Stationary Low-Resolution TD-NMR Analyzer

Stationary Spin Track

Analyzer is designed to perform:

Standard routine NMR applications
Development of new NMR-based techniques
Teaching quantum physics, NMR, and analytical chemistry in Universities and Colleges

The Spin Track Stationary fulfills all requirements to conduct NMR measurements like portable version of NMR analyzer.
In addition it is supplied with the possibility for increased probe volume to facilitate excellent statistical averaging of experimental results or to accomodate large samples.

Basic characteristics of Stationary Spin Track Analyzer:

Frequency range of the NMR spectrometer module: 5..60 MHz
Ringing time for 10 mm NMR probe is 8 ms
Probe tube diameter: up to 35 mm
Changeable preamplifiers and 50 Ohm matched duplexers with self bandwidth of 5 MHz
Customer-defined set of sensors (5, 10 and 30mm test-tube magnet systems, NMR surface sensors)
Adjustable TX output power up to 400 Watts
Adjustable RX channel gain up to 107
RX Sensitivity better than 1 mV (conditions: signal to noise ratio 3)
Adjustable digital filter bandwidth from 100 Hz up to 1 MHz
Pulse sequence length up to 64K events with resolution 100 ns
Quadrature 64Kx10-bit data acquisition system
Complete control of functions via personal computer – USB 2.0 Connectivity
Fast sensors replacement
Compatible with all Microsoft® Windows® operating systems
Relax Software

Educational Low-Resolution TD-NMR Spectrometer
Analyzer is designed to demonstrate NMR spin dynamics as well as provide a basic platform for undergraduate level chemistry and physics labs.
Standard routine NMR applications (FID, Spin Echo, CPMG, Carr-Purcell, T1-Determination (90-90 or inversion recovery))
Development of new NMR-based techniques – software allows development of pulse sequences by students without risk of instrument damage.
Teaching quantum physics, NMR, and analytical chemistry in Universities and Colleges

Basic characteristics of Stationary Spin Track Analyzer:
Frequency range of the NMR spectrometer module: 10..20 MHz
NMR Probe tube diameter: 5 mm
10-20 MHz Magnets, Surface NMR Sensors
Changeable preamplifiers and 50 Ohm matched duplexers with self bandwidth of 5 MHz
Adjustable TX output power up to 100 Watts
Adjustable RX channel gain up to 107
RX Sensitivity better than 1 mV (conditions: signal to noise ratio 3)
Adjustable digital filter bandwidth from 100 Hz up to 1 MHz
Pulse sequence length up to 64K events with resolution 100 ns
Quadrature 64Kx10-bit data acquisition system
Complete control of functions via personal computer – USB 2.0 Connectivity
Compatible with all Microsoft® Windows® operating systems
Relax Software

Custom NMR Components
For NMR engineers and advanced specialists Process NMR Associates offers accessories to upgrade, modernize, or build new NMR related devices (see connection example). All modules can be purchased separately and modules can be developed with unique characteristics to fulfill special requirements of the customer.

Surface NMR Sensors         NMR Sequence Generator

Data Acquisition Unit           Wide-Band NMR Transceiver

NMR Power Amplifier           NMR Pre-Amplifiers and Duplexers

For more information and pricing please contact John Edwards

Back to Process NMR Associates Home Page

June 1, 2006

United States Department of the Interior – Oil Shale and Tar Sands Leasing Programmatic EIS

The public forum site of the department of the interior related to the environmental impact statement is found at the following location. The site contains excellent overviews of the tar sands and oil shales found in Wyoming-Colorado-Utah. Excellent Oil Shale site from the DOE with strategic significance reports and government policy statements.

Bruker BioSciences Corporation Announces Agreement to Acquire Bruker Optics Inc.

An interesting news article from Bruker world – “Bruker BioSciences Corporation Announces Agreement to Acquire Bruker Optics Inc. for $135 Million in Cash and Stock” dated April 17, 2006. Fascinating…. of particular interest from the process analytical and molecular spectroscopy side was Bruker Optics VP Dan Klevisha’s comment – ” For Bruker Optics, becoming part of a larger and public company will also allow us to explore complementary acquisitions.”

Materials Research Society – Symposium on Magnetic Resonance in Material Science

Filed under: Process NMR, Analytical NMR, Chemistry — Administrator @ 9:33 pm

The Materials Research Society announces a call for papers for it’s Symposium (MM) on Magentic Resonance in Material Science to be held at the Fall Meeting in Boston on November 27 – December 1, 2006. Abstracts are due by June 20th.

Alternative Sources of NMR Equipment – Beyond the Big 3

There are a number of alternatives to buying new systems from Bruker-Varian-JEOL. A number of third party suppliers are present in the market selling and supporting refurbished used NMR systems. These companies can install and warranty the systems as well as maintain the cryogens for you if you wish. The companies that specialize in supercon NMR systems are Triangle Analytical, RS2D, NMR Associates, and MR Resources. A great place for used probes and repair is J S Research. Consoles can be obtained from Tecmag and from Anasazi (Anasazi also provides refurbished 60 and 90 MHz electro/permanent magnet systems). Spincore provides NMR spectrometer components for those who want to build their own instruments. Magritek, Minispec, Oxford Instruments, Resonance Systems, Progression, PCT, all sell TD-NMR instruments.

Process NMR Associates can guide you through this maze of choices.

May 31, 2006

Stan’s NMR Blog – Two Articles on Magnetic Field Noise Effects

Stan Sykora continues to expand his excellent NMR blog with two new articles on NMR signal reproducibility. His articles cover how field noise effects the repeatability of NMR signals such as FIDs and spectra and Hahn echoes and CPMG trains. In our experience of online NMR we have worked extensively on this topic with respect to the repeatability of the processed NMR spectrum and it’s effect on the repeatability/reproducibility of the chemometric predictions employed for process control. As Stan notes, if people have done a lot of work in this area it is certainly not being reported … mea culpa.

FAPRI World Agricultural Outlook 2006

The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute has published it’s annual U.S and World Agricultural Outlook for 2006.

May 30, 2006

Online TD-NMR Analyzers for 19F and 31P Analysis of Minerals and Phosphates

I guess you learn something everyday… The Harrison R. Cooper Systems Company of Bountiful Utah has been marketing low field Phosphorus-31 and Fluorine-19 NMR analyzers for a phospate mineral benefication process and for fluorine monitoring in mineral slurries. It appears from the site that only a few installations were made and no indication of successful outcomes or benefits are provided in the analyzer and process descriptions. I can’t decipher where the NMR technology originated….perhaps Auburn?

May 26, 2006

21.1 Tesla Quench Video

The University of Colorado Health Science Center installed a pumped 900 MHz system in 2005. They have an awesome video of a deliberate quench of the magnet as part of the ramping protocol. Here is the link to the video and here is a link to the NIH funded facility.

1H and 13C Shifts of Common NMR Solvents – Excel Table

Edward Vawter of QD Information Services has made available two useful excel spreadsheets containing the 1H chemical shifts and 13C chemical shifts of most common deuterated NMR solvents. He also has a few other useful articles available from his download page.

Hilarious NMR Adventures at Stanford

Dylan Stiles at Stanford has an often hilarious blog category dedicated to the NMR aspects of his natural product synthesis projects. He gets a lot of commentary which is great as I think he has the only NMR blog that anyone cares to read. His blog is at http://blog.tenderbutton.com/?cat=9.

NMR Post-Processing Software for Mac Users

Phillip Grandinetti of Ohio State University (Research Group Site) offers an NMR post processing program for mac users called RMN at his website. He has an alpha version that runs under OS X and he is looking for alpha-testers to kick the tires. A more mature version is available that runs under Mac Classic OS.

 Mestrec laboratories also offer a cheap (50/100 Euro) software package that is available at iNMR.

May 22, 2006

AMMRL Meeting at 47th ENC – Asilomar, CA, April 2006 – Presentations

The AMMRL (Association of Managers in Magnetic Resonance Laboratories) held an annual meeting at which a number of presentations were given that give an idea of the economics and issues that arise for University NMR Facility Managers and Administrators, the links are below:
Charlie Fry—Introduction
Ken Visscher—Open-Access Laboratories in Industry
Nick Burlinson—Design and Installation of a Departmental NMR Facility
Eugene DeRose—Problems and Protections for Pumped Magnets
Josh Kurutz—A Survey of Business Models for Academic Facilities
David Vander Velde—Cryoprobes and Money (a.k.a. Losing Money)
Klaas Hallenga—Practical Tips and Tricks with Cryogenic Probes

The AMMRL has a website with some basic information at http://chemnmr.colorado.edu/ammrl/ and has an invaluable archive of “user group” e-mails that discuss all aspects of running and maintaining an NMR facility (Email – Archives 1993-Present). If you have a question about instrument problems, instrument and cryogen maintenance, user training, user competency, safety issues, etc …. chances are the answers are already included in this database. The database can also be searched by key word to arrive at “on-topic” material.

The Anatomy of a Superconducting NMR Magnet

May 18th, 2006

Dr Joseph Vaughn of Florida State University has placed an autopsy of a Varian R2D2 7.05 Tesla NMR magnet on the department website. The innards of the magnet and probe are all exposed in the gory photographs. Check it out at the FSU chemistry site : http://www.chem.fsu.edu/facilities/cutaway_nmr_magnet.asp

This is one of the siblings of the magnets that we operate in our labortory at Process NMR Associates. The site is only for those with a strong stomach.

8th International Bologna Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Porous Media

May 16th, 2006

This conference (MRPM8) will be held September 10-14 at the University of Bologna, Italy. It is being held a few days after the 6th Colloquium on Mobile magnetic Resonance in Aachen Germany, (September 6-8, CMMR6) to facilitate the attendance of conferees at both meetings.

Symbion Systems Inc

May 3rd, 2006

Symbion Systems Inc has developed a family of software products that provide a common interface for communicating with, networking, and controlling many analytical instruments, and sample systems, in a laboratory or process analysis setting. The software can control many individual analyzers from different vendors, process the data and visualize it, store the data in SQL databases, and perform complex chemometric analysis by calling various calibrations from many chemometric software platforms. The predictions obtained from process analytical instrumentation can be plotted, visualized, stored, and outputted under many standard formats for integration with process control and optimization software. A version can be obtained that is GLP/GMP/21 CFR, Part 11 compliant. The software will provide an excellent platform for development and execution of analytical laboratory methods, as well as process analytical applications.

One Moon Scientific Inc.

May 3rd, 2006

Bruce Johnson of One Moon Scientific (ex Merck) has produced a series of software tools for visualizing and analyzing spectroscopic data with particular emphasis on NMR data. His NMRViewJ can process and visualize NMR datasets in 1 or multiple dimensions and has built in molecular visualization and statistical data analysis tools. The software is “free” but Bruce asks that if you download and use it you should pay a “support contract fee” in order to support the ongoing development of the NMR software products.

16th ISMAR 2007 – Website Posted

April 26th, 2006

The International Society of Magnetic Resonance announces the 16th Triennial Conference to be held at Kenting, Taiwan, October 14-19, 2007. Organized by the Taiwan Magnetic Resonance Society, Academia Sinica, Taiwan – Website is found at http://www.ismar2007.sinica.edu.tw/

Energy Information

April 1st, 2006

Here are a few excellent links to the energy situation in the 21st Century:

Energy Technologies for the Twenty-First Century
WEC - Survey of Energy Resources 2001
DOE - This Week in Petroleum
Energy Information Administration – Main Site

Modern Drug Discovery – NMR Articles

March 15th, 2006

ACS Publication “Modern Drug Discovery” – Available NMR Articles
Screening with NMR
NMR Spectroscopy Software – Molecular biologists can now use proton NMR data to elucidate protein structure.
NMR on Target
Ultracool NMR Technology – Cryoprobes
Looking for Quality

NMR of Silicones in Pharmaceutical Developments

March 14th, 2006

Dow Corning have published a small overview paper on manufacturing processes and development of silicones in pharmaceutical formulations. The paper includes characterization details by FT-IR and NMR.

The 6th Colloquium on Mobile Magnetic Resonance – Official Website now Posted

March 14th, 2006

The 6th Colloquium on Mobile Magnetic Resonance has now posted an official website to cover the meeting at http://www.cmmr.de/index.htm

PNA Talk – Dr Giammatteo to Present Sigma Xi Seminar at Quinnipiac University

March 13th, 2006

Hamden, Conn. – Dr. Paul J. Giammatteo, co-founder of Process NMR Associates, will present “Pulse, Acquire, Control: Ten Years of Online High-Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) in Refining, Petrochemical and Food Manufacturing” at 12 p.m. on Monday, March 27, in the Clarice L. Buckman Theater at Quinnipiac University.

The free lecture is open to the public and is part of Sigma XI Special Seminar Series.

From gasoline manufacturing to butter production, more than 140 online NMRs have been placed in manufacturing plants worldwide. Giammatteo will discuss installation and utilization of this technology, its application in the petroleum and petrochemical industries and the future in pharmaceuticals.

Giammatteo co-founded Process NMR Associates, based in Danbury, in 1997. He previously worked for Texaco for 17 years. Giammatteo received his doctorate in chemistry from Wesleyan University and has published and presented more than 30 papers.

For more information, contact James Kirby, associate professor of chemistry at Quinnipiac, at (203) 582-8275 or James.Kirby@quinnipiac.edu

NMR Applications in Food Quality

March 10th, 2006

Overview document on Belgian Science Policy as it pertains to the use of low and high field NMR in the quality control of food.

Quantification by 1H NMR of Fatty Acids and Their Derivatives – by G. Knothe – USDA

An incredible repository of NMR information related to 1H and 13C NMR of Fatty Acids and their derivatives is found at the Lipid Library.

What is Your Carbon Footprint?

March 10th, 2006

A handy calculator from BP allows you to calculate your impact on global warming – Carbon Calculator.

Heavy Oil and Bitumen Upgrading

March 10th, 2006

“Bitumen from Canadian Oil Sands – The Worlds New Marginal Supply of Oil” – January 2006

“Oil Sands: Alberta’s Opportunity to Become a Significant Oil Exporter” – by Fluor, February 2004.

National Center for Upgrading Technology – Conference on “Upgrading and Refining of Heavy Oil, Bitumen and Synthetic Crude Oil” – September 2006 – Details

“Bitumen and Very Heavy Crude Upgrading Technology – A Review of Long Term R&D Opportunities” March 2004

Genoil demonstration of an upgraded bitumen – effects on TBP and other physical properties.

“Fueling an Integrated Energy Future” – Energy Innovation Network, December 2004

Kearl Lake Bitumen Extraction Project

“Historical Perspective of the Heavy Oil Resources of Utah”

USGS - “Heavy Oil and Natural Bitumen-Strategic Petroleum Resources”

“Non-Conventional Hydrocarbons – Where and How Much”

Energy Independence for North America Through Heavy Oil Upgrading – Presentation – same material but presented as a Paper

Alberta Energy Research Institute – Strategic Research Plan

Shell – Gasification in Heavy Oil Upgrading in Alberta

“The Impact of Emerging Research Techniques on Exploitation and Refining Technology Development” John Shaw – University of Alberta

“Alberta’s Oils Sands Opportunity”

Jacobs Engineering – Oils Sands Production Presentation

Total – Tar Sands Production Presentation

Effect of Tar Sands on World Oil Supply – Imperial Oil

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

Alternative Fuels – An Energy technology Perspective – March 2005

“Integration Opportunities for Coal/Oil Coprocessing With Existing Refineries”

Oil Sands Supply Outlook – March 2004

Spatial Encoding Produces 2D-NMR in a Single Scan

March 9th, 2006

Ultrafast 2D NMR spectroscopy obtained in a single scan is described by Lucio Frydman of the Weizman Institutein his paper entitled “Single Scan 2D NMR”

Metabonomics Overview – High Field 1H NMR in Metabolite Profiling

March 9th, 2006

Professor John Lindon (Metabometrix Ltd) provides an Overview of Metabonomics relating the role of high field 1H NMR in metabolite profiling in biofluids.

Polymer Chemistry Resource

March 1st, 2006

Beautiful site that gives overviews of most polymer chemistry systems.