Deuteration quadrupolar coupling

In solid state. Nuclear Quadrupolar Resonance (NQR) [41] is the standard technique to measure quadrupolar coupling constants, while in gas phase Microwave (MW) spectroscopy [42] can be used for small molecules. The MW quantities, however, are obtained in the inertial frame of the molecule. In liquid state, there is no direct method to obtain QCCs. In some favorable cases, QCC can be obtained from simultaneous studies of non-deuterated compounds using NMR (Ti minima, partially oriented systems, etc). 

In the solid, dynamics occurring within the kHz frequency scale can be examined by line-shape analysis of 2H or 13C (or 15N) NMR spectra by respective quadrupolar and CSA interactions, isotropic peaks16,59-62 or dipolar couplings based on dipolar chemical shift correlation experiments.63-65 In the former, tyrosine or phenylalanine dynamics of Leu-enkephalin are examined at frequencies of 103-104 Hz by 2H NMR of deuterated samples and at 1.3 x 102 Hz by 13C CPMAS, respectively.60-62 In the latter, dipolar interactions between the 1H-1H and 1H-13C (or 3H-15N) pairs are determined by a 2D-MAS SLF technique such as wide-line separation (WISE)63 and dipolar chemical shift separation (DIP-SHIFT)64,65 or Lee-Goldburg CP (LGCP) NMR,66 respectively. In the WISE experiment, the XH wide-line spectrum of the blend polymers consists of a rather featureless superposition of components with different dipolar widths which can be separated in the second frequency dimension and related to structural units according to their 13C chemical shifts.63... 

A variety of relaxation time studies have been performed on toluene. The choice of deuterated toluene avoids certain complicating factors which affect proton NMR studies, such as, dipolar or spin-spin couplings. The dominant relaxation mechanism is quadrupolar and the relaxation times are determined by the reorientation of the C-D bond vector. Relaxation times such as T, are sensitive to the motions of the solvent around the larmor frequency, which is on the order of 14 MHz in this study. T2 measurements may probe slower motions if the molecule undergoes slow and/or anisotropic motion. The relaxation time results presented in Figure 3 are significantly shorter than those found in bulk toluene solutions (18.19). In bulk toluene, the T and T2 values are equal above the melting temperature (1.2.). In this polymer system T2 < T indicative of slow and/or anisotropic reorientation. 

In case of a deuterated sample (spin 1 case), the spectra are usually dominated by the quadrupolar interaction, that is, the coupling of the nuclear quadrupole moment with the electric field gradient of the C-2H bond. For deuterons in C-2H bonds this can lead to a splitting of about 250 kHz. As in the case of dipolar interaction, a Pake spectrum is obtained for a powder sample. The z-principal axis of the quadrupolar interaction is oriented along the bond axis which makes deuteron NMR particularly useful for studies of segmental orientations and molecular dynamics (reorientation) [1],... 

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