Credit: Dr. Jin Wook Cha et al.
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed the first NMR method to selectively quantify the information of carbon atom nuclei linked to specific hydrogen within a single measurement. With the development of the Ultraselective Heteronuclear Polarization Transfer Method or UHPT, researchers were able to optimize hydrogen-carbon NMR signal resolution.
Despite UHPT methods existing for selective NMR measurement of hydrogen nuclei, rapid measurement of carbon nuclei signals was not possible, thus making securing a satisfactory level of specific hydrogen-carbon NMR signal resolution difficult. In the research published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, researchers developed the UHPT method to distinguish the carbon associated with specific hydrogen nuclei in a single measurement. Even amongst complex carbon-carbon NMR signals, excellent signal resolution of several hertz was achieved allowing researchers to analyze the complex molecular structures of natural products.
"The new NMR method can be used as a standard analysis technique for identifying and standardizing the active ingredients of new materials in the natural product bio industry," said Dr. Jin-Wook Cha of KIST. "It is expected to contribute to the development of the natural product bio industry by solving the challenges of the drug development process by using it to identify the structure of partial particulate matter, which plays a crucial role in determining the efficacy and safety of drugs."
The methodology provides a rapid and cost-effective technique that can be applied to currently-owned NMR equipment providing equivalent signal strengths to ultra-high field NMR at a fraction of the analysis time.