NEWS AND UPDATES

2025 will be an eventful year for our NMR community. January is warming up with the Reaction Monitoring Symposium 2025 at the DReaM facility in the University of Bath and the Horizon 2020 Remote-NMR – Helium recovery online symposium (29th Jan). In February and over the summer, respectively, the Universities of Warwick and of Birmingham will receive deliveries of the two UK 1.2 GHz NMR systems. In March we will see the University of Warwick hosting a Solid-state NMR workshop (18th Mar) followed by the UK High Field Solid State NMR Facility Annual Symposium (19th Mar). And in Spring, great discussions will bloom at Frontiers of Magnetic Resonance/NMRDG Spring Meeting in University of Southampton (31st Mar-1st Apr) and at the CCPN 2025 conference in York (30th Jun – 2nd Jul).

Please see details and links for these and other events below. In summary, 2025 is full of opportunities to engage with the NMR community, discuss NMR research and maybe, establish new collaborations.

A reminder that the current Connect NMR UK supporting fund finishes on the 31st January 2025. We won’t be able to support any Training Mobility Grant or NMR focused events beyond this date.

Discussions are in progress regarding what would be a Connect NMR V2.0 national network. So please get in touch and let us know your thoughts and ideas about the network.

Challenge

As we see our NMR community grow, and the potential of the UK NMR facilities increase, I would like to leave a challenge. Between the 7th and the 16th of March, the research community will be celebrating the British Science Week 2025. Why not take some time during this week, (an Open Day?!) and open the doors of the UK NMR facilities to the wider research community and/or to the lay community. Let them know what we do, and the huge potential of NMR and impact of NMR focused and collaborative research.

This would be a fantastic opportunity to seed new multidisciplinary collaborations, impact and motivate young minds to focus of beautiful STEM subjects, etc…


RESEARCH HIGHILIGHTS

The paper “Simple Parameters and Data Processing for Better Signal-to-Noise and Temporal Resolution in In Situ 1D NMR Reaction Monitoring” by Annabel Flook and Guy Lloyd-Jones FRS introduces a method to enhance both signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and temporal resolution in in situ one-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (1D NMR) spectroscopic reaction monitoring. Traditionally, multiple scans are averaged during acquisition to improve S/N, which can reduce the number of kinetic data points. The authors present an alternative: acquire the same number of scans but save each independently, to allow post-acquisition signal averaging. This approach increases both S/N and the number of kinetic data points, while preventing “over-averaging” effects. Additionally, summing the entire series of single-scan free induction decays (FIDs) yields a “total reaction spectrum” for identifying intermediates. This method simplifies pre-acquisition parameter selection and can be combined with phase cycling to minimize spectral distortion during solvent signal suppression. They demonstrate the utility of the method with some simple examples involving analysis of fast kinetics, identification of low concentration intermediates, and measuring heavy atom kinetic isotope effects, and also provide detailed instructions, including spreadsheets, and video tutorials.

Flook and Lloyd-Jones, J Org Chem 2024, 89(22):16586-16593.  doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.4c01882

 

The study “Passivation, phase, and morphology control of CdS nanocrystals probed using fluorinated aromatic amines and solid-state NMR spectroscopy” is the result of a collaboration between the teams of Professor David J Lewis and Dr Daniel Lee from University of Manchester. This multidisciplinary work explores the influence of fluorinated aromatic amines on the synthesis and properties of cadmium sulphide (CdS) nanocrystals (NCs). By incorporating 3-fluorobenzylamine (3-FlBzAm) and 3-fluoroaniline (3-FlAn) as co-capping agents with trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) during solvothermal decomposition, the researchers achieved control over the NCs’ phase and morphology. Powder X-ray diffraction revealed that using TOPO:3-FlAn mixtures favoured the formation of predominantly cubic CdS, while TOPO:3-FlBzAm mixtures resulted in primarily hexagonal structures. Raman spectroscopy confirmed the presence of hexagonal CdS across all samples and solid-state 113Cd NMR spectroscopy demonstrated that both cubic and hexagonal CdS were present in all samples and that their relative ratio could be controlled using the fluorinated aromatic amines. Solid-state NMR spectroscopy also indicated a stronger binding affinity of 3-FlBzAm compared to 3-FlAn on the CdS surface and through-space interactions between 19F nuclei from the organic ligands showed that the fluorinated aromatic amines can neighbour each other with maximum surface coverage. This work demonstrates that fluorinated aromatic amines can effectively serve as probes and modulators of NC surfaces, offering a pathway to tailor NC properties through controlled growth conditions.

 Buckingham et al., Nanoscale Adv 2024,18.  doi: 10.1039/d4na00564c


UPCOMING EVENTS

Horizon 2020 Remote-NMR Online Symposium – Wednesday January 29th 1500-1700 CET (2pm – 4pm UK time) (link to join: https://uni-frankfurt.zoom-x.de/j/68113390878?pwd=OuGSmWUpbJHvGJkpQUWp7bezOnGbXW.1)

Solid-state-NMR-workshop-2025 – March 17 March 7:00 pm to March 18 @ 7:00 pm at the Millburn House, University of Warwick

UK High-Field Solid-State NMR Facility Annual Symposium – March 19 @ 10:30 am to 5:00 pm at the Scarman conference centre, University of Warwick

Frontiers of Magnetic Resonance / NMR Discussion Group Spring Meeting – 31 March 2025 10:00 to 1 April 2025 11:00 at Southampton , UK

Experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Conference – JOINT ENC – ISMAR CONFERENCE – 6-10 April 2025 at the Asilomar Conference Center, 800 Asilomar Blvd, Pacific Grove, CA 93950

PANIC – Practical Applications of NMR in Industry Conference – 19-22 May 2025 at Rockville, Maryland at the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) Campus

Workshop – Paramagnetic NMR & DNP enhanced solid-state NMR – 19 – 23 May 2025 at the CRMN, Lyon

CCPN 2025 conference in York – June 30 @ 8:00 am to July 2 @ 5:00 pm in York

EuroMAR2025 – 6-10 July 2025 at Oulu, Finland

2025 Alpine Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Solids – 14-18 September 2025 at Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France


FEATURED FACILITY

Last but definitely not least, it is a pleasure to have Andrew Hall telling us about the NMR facility at the University of Edinburgh with a focus on the state-of-the-art Helium recovery and liquefaction system in this HEI:

The NMR facility at the University of Edinburgh features four liquid-state and one solid-state spectrometers (300 – 600 MHz) used for characterisation of small molecules, biomolecules, polymers and inorganic materials. The 400 MHz spectrometer owned by the Lloyd-Jones group in the School of Chemistry is dedicated for reaction monitoring, with specialist instrumentation for monitoring heterogenous reactions, photochemistry and fast reactions on the millisecond timescale. The facility also hosts the Scottish High-Field Centre (SHFC), with an 800 MHz spectrometer operating in dual liquid-solid configuration used primarily for complex mixture analysis and structural biology in the liquid state, and inorganic materials chemistry in the solid state. 50% of the SHFC spectrometer time is shared among participating Scottish Universities and the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research through the SNUG network.

The NMR and mass spectrometry facilities at the University of Edinburgh combined consume 3000 litres of liquid helium annually. A helium gas recovery system was fitted in 2018, capturing over 95% of the helium from refills and everyday boil-off (15,000 m3 to date). In January 2025, a Cryomech helium liquefaction plant was commissioned, producing over 22 litres/day of liquid helium from the recovered gas. With an annual capacity of 8000 litres/year the liquefier removes the need to purchase liquid helium from commercial suppliers. The ability to produce liquid helium in-house is anticipated to make significant cost savings compared to purchasing commercially produced liquid helium, along with securing a sustainable supply that is decoupled from market fluctuations.