International Humic Substances Society
International Humic Substances Society – details on standard humic and fulvic acid isolation methods – standard materials – NMR reference data on standard materials.
NMR Meetings and Society Links
A few society websites to keep an eye out for meetings as well as a few meeting links that I have come across recently.
International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
Clinical Magnetic Resonance Society
European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology
Japanese Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance
Magnetic Resonance Managers Society
Spanish Magnetic Resonance Society
Australian and New Zealand Society for Magnetic Resonance
German Magnetic Resonance Discussion Group
Italian Magnetic Resonance Discussion Group
49th Rocky Mountain Conference on Analytical Chemistry – July 22-26, 2007 – Beaver Run Resort, Breckenridge, Colorado
Society for Applied Spectroscopy
5th Alpine Conference on Solid-State NMR11th Brazilian NMR User Meeting / Workshop: NMR in South America – May 7-11, Rio de Janeiro State, BrazilFor information please contact Sonia Cabral de Menezes
45th Annual Meeting of The NMR Society of Japan Nov. 22-24, Kyoto, Japan
MRS Symposium “Magnetic Resonance in Material Science” Nov. 27 – Dec. 1, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
For further NMR meeting info visit https://process-nmr.com/meetings_and_events%202006.htm
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
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.
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-110A 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 2006HTS-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
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
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 Program
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
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