Benchtop NMR | NMR Spectroscopy without leaving your lab

Prof. Dr. Olivier Coulembier - Senior Research Associate for the F.R.S.-FNRS - “The benchtop NMR Spinsolve represents an incomparable work tool, and the choice of functionalities is vast. It's certainly one of the best investments I've made in a long time.” Prof Coulembier is Senior Research Associate for F.R.S. – FNRS & AXA Professor in Chemistry at the Center of Innovation and Research in Materials and Polymers (CIRMAP) of the University of Mons (Belgium). His research group is centered around macromolecular engineering by biomimetic inspiration, focusing on developing strategies to control the preparation of complex macromolecular topologies through the design of new monomers, initiators, and on-demand catalysts. Their efforts emphasize sustainability in polymer science, including 'green' methodologies for polymer synthesis and strategies to address plastic waste and valorize carbon dioxide. To drive chemical discoveries towards application, they collaborate closely with engineers, biologists, and medical professionals across academia and industry.

Prof. Dr. Ulrich S. Schubert - Dr. Stefan Zechel - Our group is active in a broad field of applications associated with polymer research. Besides medical and battery applications, the automation of polymer research is also one of our major concerns. Using synthesis robots, we investigate different types of polymerizations. In this context, the monitoring of reactions, in particular polymerizations, e.g., regarding the degree of conversion of the monomers, is of crucial importance.

Dr. Jonathan Farjon is a French CNRS researcher from CEISAM lab at Nantes University. He is involved in the development of NMR methods for improving the performances of benchtop apparatus. Since 2018, he has led different projects involving benchtop NMR for in-line flow reaction monitoring, food transformations and microalgae cultivation bioprocesses. Pioneer results were achieved on the three Spinsolve systems of the lab thanks to the development of NMR approaches to overcome limitations related to the reduction of the magnetic field on compact NMR instruments

Cordenpharma has installed in Chenove its center of Excellence for flow chemistry. Beside a modular GMP pilot line for flow chemistry, this includes as well a state of the art flow chemistry lab for doing feasibility studies (proof of concept), or process development. State of the art does not mean flow reactors only, but an infrastructure which allows to exploit all advantages of flow chemistry. One important part of this infrastructure are spectrometers for online measurements( NMR, IR, Raman, UV-Vis etc.), which is a key element to perform rapidly and efficiently feasibility studies and process development.

“The Spinsolve is a great machine! It allowed us to implement a highly automated,  mostly 3D printed magnetic-field-cycling device for our experiments with hyperpolarized substrates. The support of Magritek was absolutely essential, uncomplicated and great!“

We are very excited about our new NMR system because it will help our production facilities to further improve their efficiency and reliability with very fast turn-around times for the analyses and a very high accuracy. Additionally, the technique is very operator friendly, which means that QC-technicians or production personnel will be able to generate the data they need, to facilitate smooth production processes and batch releases.

After more than ten years’ experience with high-field NMR equipment, I am convinced that this technique is a powerful tool for structure elucidation, multicomponent mixture analysis as well as for the purity determination of single compounds. Therefore, after becoming a professor, I was very enthusiastic to show students different possibilities of this technique.

Dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (dDNP) is with no doubt the most versatile technique to enhance the NMR sensitivity in the liquid state. In principle, all NMR nuclei can be hyperpolarized by dDNP. DDNP is a central research topic at LIFMET. The Spinsolve 43 with active 13C/129Xe switch on the X-channel, was the perfect complement to this project. It’s portability, reliability and ease of use allows us to estimate the signal enhancement and relaxation time of our hyperpolarized samples in different experimental situations.

Our group at Helmholtz Institute, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is working on novel applications of hyperpolarization for enhanced NMR spectroscopy and imaging.  Given the complexity of our experiments, we needed a benchtop spectrometer which (1) is easy to set up for various trigger and acquisition schemes, (2) has the ability for designing custom-made pulse sequences, (3) has a great homogeneity to distinguish chemical shifts at ~1 T magnetic field. I can confidently state that among several brands of benchtop NMR spectrometers I had a chance to operate, Magritek stands out as supreme in all these categories.

VITO NV (Flemish technological research institute) is actively involved in many activities concerning sustainability of materials and processes. As a part of the development of the MESCH (membrane processes) team and SPOT (Sustainable Polymer Technologies) team the use of spectroscopic techniques for the characterization of samples is very important. So far we were outsourcing NMR experiments. Due to the high volume of samples we decided to purchase a benchtop NMR magnet. After the successful trials conducted by Magritek, that meet all our expectations, we didn’t hesitate to buy the Magritek Spinsolve 80 Ultra 31P.

One of our research activities consists in understanding the mechanistic facets of transition-metal-catalyzed transformations, such as cross-coupling or C-H activation processes. A particular focus is put on the iron-catalyzed systems. Therefore, we often have to deal with the characterization of paramagnetic short-lived organometallic transient species.

One of the advantages of the Spinsolve NMR spectrometer from Magritek is its capability to measure samples in flow. We have built up a two-dimensional characterization GPC-NMR, with molecular size resolution for polymers due to the GPC and chemical information due to the NMR. This project is very much demanding, especially for the Benchtop NMR part. As it is well-known, the sample coming from GPC is in low concentration and therefore our NMR spectrometer has to be very sensitive.

B4Plastics is a Polymer Architecture company focusing on the upscaling of biobased and biodegradable plastics. Magritek’s Spinsolve 60 Carbon Ultra NMR spectrometer has dramatically improved the quality of our research and understanding of the chemistry. The spectrometer and software are very easy to be operated, and require only very little maintenance. Standard 1H-, 13C- and 19F NMR for characterization and purity checks of both small compounds and polymeric substances provide spectra with amazingly high resolution for only 60 MHz.

Our group, the Laboratory for Polymeric Coatings, belongs to the Institute of Materials and Process Engineering from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. We are generally engaged with functional, smart, and monomolecular coatings, but also with classical coatings on materials such as paper and cardboard, textiles, metals, and plastics. To this end, synthesis of small molecules (monomers) and novel polymers is often needed. Organic Synthesis without an NMR-spectrometer is unthinkable nowadays.

Thanks to the ease of use, the low maintenance cost, and the high flexibility with three nuclei 1H, 13C and 19F and several 1D and 2D experiments the Magritek Spinsolve 60 MHz Carbon is used in many different projects and besides the confirmation of the chemical structure we also measure the reactivity in polycondensation reactions as well as the composition of copolymers.

At Magritek we found the ideal package consisting of support from the Magritek-team, user-friendly equipment, and cost-effective operation. Our analytical portfolio of three Spinsolve 80 NMR spectrometer enables us to study compounds possessing 1H, 19F, 13C, 29Si and 31P nuclei. Both areas, R&D and production / quality control, use the high-quality data provided by the spectrometers. In addition, the use of the autosampler extension shortens our time to market for R&D and customising projects as it allows quick and standardised analysis of samples.

The tabletop Spinsolve 60 Carbon Ultra NMR drastically improved our analytical possibilities. We mainly use the 1H-Proton measurement for quality control. Our products are mostly water based, but strongly corrosive (acidic, alkaline). NMR with its contact free measurement is very well suited to our needs. Owning and running an NMR spectrometer would never have been possible to us if it still needed cryogenic cooling. The Spinsolve has a small footprint and low maintenance costs

To reach excellent teaching in interdisciplinary disciplines like medical and life sciences knowledge in the wide field of chemical and scientific analysis is mandatory. Structure determination of small molecules, quantification of metabolomics and reaction monitoring are only a view to mention, but without proper equipment it is often hard to fulfil the requirements of teaching.

Since we have limited space in our quality control department, we have never had the opportunity of operating an NMR device on site. After getting to know the Magritek Benchtop NMR for reaction monitoring during my studies at university, we implemented this comparably very small and easy-to-use device in our quality control lab.

Fabrice Azemar is active in (co)polymers synthesis and modifications for applications in antifouling coatings. There is no high field instrument on his site. Before he had the Spinsolve, the samples for NMR measurements were sent to the university of Brest, which took him 3 to 5 days to get the results. An alternative was to drive (about 150 km) with the samples to the NMR facilities.