Dr. John Edwards of Process NMR Associates will be attending an RSC sponsored one day symposium on “Reaction Monitoring Using NMR and Vibrational spectroscopy – An Industrial Perspective”. The meeting will be held at the Pfizer Research Center in Sandwich, Kent, UK on March 22, 2011. Dr Edwards will be presenting a poster entitled “Practical Applications of Compact High-Resolution 60 MHz Permanent Magnet NMR Systems for Reaction Monitoring and Online Process Control”. The abstract of the talk is presented below:
For the past two decades high resolution 1H NMR at 60 MHz has been utilized to monitor the chemical physical properties of refinery and petrochemical feed-streams and products. These approaches involve the use of partial least squares regression modeling to correlate NMR spectral variability with ASTM and other official test methods, allowing the NMR to predict results of physical property tests or GC analysis. The analysis is performed in a stop flow environment where solenoid valves are closed at the beginning of the NMR experiment. This approach allows up to 5 or 6 different sample streams to be sent to the sample in order to maximize the impact of the instrument. The current work with these permanent magnet NMR systems is to utilize them as chemistry detectors for bench-top reaction monitoring, mixing monitoring, dilution monitoring, or conversion monitoring. In the past use of NMR for these applications has been limited by the need to bring the “reaction” to the typical “superconducting” NMR lab. A compact high resolution NMR system will be described that can be situated on the bench-top or in the fume hood to be used as a continuous or stop-flow detector and/or an “in-situ” reaction monitoring system. The system uses a unique 1.5 Tesla permanent magnet with a simple flow cell and total system volumes of 2 to 5 ml depending on the length and diameter of the transfer tubing. Further, detection limits of analytes in the 200+ ppm range are possible without the use of typical deuterated NMR solvents. Analysis times of 5 to 20 seconds are also possible at flow rates of 5 to 20+ ml/minute. Reaction monitoring directly in standard 5 mm NMR tubes again using conventional (non-deuterated) reactants, solvents and analytes will also be described.
Details of the symposium and registration information can be found at the RSC website.