High-sensitivity multinuclear 600 MHz NMR for synthesis, catalysis and functional materials

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The design, synthesis and development of new materials and molecules sits at the core of numerous scientific advances in energy storage, agriculture, health and medicine, and environmentally sustainable plastics. In all these cases a fundamental requirement is to be able to understand and accurately define the structure of these molecules- one of the most important analytical techniques to achieve this Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy. Despite its ability to provide exquisite insights into molecular structures, NMR is hampered by its rather poor detection sensitivity, meaning relatively large quantities of very precious samples are required for analysis, although such quantities are not always available. It is also the case that due to the very high information content provided by NMR, the data it provides can be complex and challenging to interpret. Technological advances can assist in both these areas and so aid in the advancement of molecular design. The sensitivity of the detection probes can be improved significantly by cooling these and their associated preamplifiers to very low temperatures (~25 and 85 Kelvin respectively) with liquid helium, as in cryogenic probes or "cryoprobes". These enable chemists and materials scientists to work with far smaller quantities and collect valuable data more rapidly and efficiently. The use of more powerful magnetic fields also improves sensitivity and leads to greater signal dispersion of the detected signals, allowing the study of more complex and structurally diverse molecules. The cutting-edge NMR spectrometer equipped with a high-sensitivity cryoprobe will support multiple world-leading research groups across chemistry, materials science, and physics that rely on an understanding of molecular structures, enabling these researchers to remain internationally competitive. It will replace an existing NMR instrument that is fifteen years old and will provide scientists employing this technique with greater capabilities, better performance, increased efficiency and improved reliability. This in turn will enable discoveries relevant to new therapeutics and pharmaceuticals (including antibiotics) for better healthcare, advanced agrochemicals for food productivity, battery technologies for energy storage, sustainable polymers and plastics, and more efficient methods for future manufacturing.