Kobayashi, T., et al., Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Solid-State NMR in Heterogeneous Catalysis Research. ACS Catalysis, 2015. 5(12): p. 7055-7062.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.5b02039
This article does not seem to have an abstract, therefore I’m posting the first two paragraphs.
A revolution in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR) spectroscopy is taking place, attributable to the rapid development of high-field dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP), a technique yielding sensitivity improvements of 2–3 orders of magnitude. This higher sensitivity in SSNMR has already impacted materials research, and the implications of new methods on catalytic sciences are expected to be profound.
With their unique sensitivity to the local electronic environment, the nuclear spins can play the role of perfect reporters in the quest for a fundamental understanding of the catalytic processes at the atomic-scale. Indeed, during the last several decades, SSNMR spectroscopy has evolved to become one of the premier analytical methods for structural characterization of heterogeneous catalytic systems, providing in-depth knowledge about catalyst supports, active sites, reacting molecules, and their interactions.(1-3) Noteworthy is also NMR’s ability to investigate a wide range of dynamic processes at solid–liquid and solid–gas interfaces under catalytically relevant pressures and temperatures. The development of sophisticated SSNMR instrumentation, methodology, and advances in theory have endowed the researchers with an ever increasing ability not only to identify and quantify individual chemical sites but also to determine the three-dimensional (3D) catalytic structures, which are often non-periodic and disordered. Of importance are also the active site distribution and the interactions between these sites and the reacting molecules. This area of multidimensional correlation NMR spectroscopy can open new frontiers for the definite characterization of increasingly complex catalytic materials, provided that the issue of low sensitivity can be overcome.