STTR Phase I: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy at Low Magnetic Fields

该小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目将开发一种在中等和低磁场强度下使用核磁共振（NMR）光谱进行化学分析的新方法。NMR光谱学的主要成本和物理限制是通常需要的高场磁体。虽然高场仪器面临着来自小型台式仪器的竞争，但这些中等场设备的性能较低，成本高，缺乏便携性。该项目将通过探索一种新方法来解决这些挑战，该方法旨在使用廉价，轻便，便携式磁体产生的较弱，不同的磁场。这将降低成本，并在石油勘探，炼油和化学制造的更广泛应用中扩大NMR市场;以及潜在的小型教育机构，如高中。该项目的智力价值是开发一种新形式的NMR光谱学背后的物理理论，并在中等场台式光谱仪中进行测试，以及在目前无法获得光谱信息的低场制度中进行测试。最近发现的一种称为“自旋锁定诱导交叉”（SLIC）的现象使这成为可能，该现象测量了系统如何响应小的旋转磁场而不是强的静态磁场。目标之一是扩展对SLIC的理论理解，以预测和分析它产生的非常规光谱。其他实验任务将包括探索光谱仪使用该技术所需的物理规格，评估该方法与传统NMR光谱相比的性能，为常见化学品创建低场光谱字典，以及开发自动分析和解释光谱的方法。研究结果将被用于开发软件，用于在现有的台式仪器上实施该方法，并将为仅基于这些方法的低场光谱仪的设计和翻译提供基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop a novel method for chemical analysis using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy at moderate and low magnetic field strengths. A major cost and physical limitation of NMR spectroscopy is the high-field magnet typically required. Although high-field instruments face competition from smaller benchtop-sized instruments, now a $120 million segment of the $1.25 billion NMR market, these moderate-field devices have lower performance, high cost, and lack portability. This project will address these challenges by exploring a new method designed to work in weaker, different magnetic fields produced with cheap, light, portable magnets. This will bring down the cost and expand the NMR market in a broader range of applications in petroleum exploration, refining, and chemical manufacturing; and potentially smaller educational institutions such as high schools. The intellectual merit of this project is the development of the physical theory behind a new form of NMR spectroscopy and its testing in moderate-field benchtop spectrometers, as well as in low-field regimes where spectroscopic information is currently impossible to acquire. This is made possible by a recently discovered phenomenon called "spin-lock induced crossing" (SLIC), which measures how the system responds to a small rotating magnetic field rather than a strong static field. One goal will be to expand the theoretical understanding of SLIC in order to predict and analyze the unconventional spectra it produces. Other experimental tasks will include exploring the physical specifications necessary for spectrometers to use the technique, evaluating the method's performance compared to conventional NMR spectroscopy, creating a dictionary of low-field spectra for common chemicals, and developing methods for automatic analysis and interpretation of the spectra. The results will be used to develop software for implementing the method on current benchtop instruments and will also provide a basis for the design and translation of low-field spectrometers based solely on these methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.