NMR spectroscopy in environmental research: From molecular interactions to global processes

NMR spectroscopy is a most powerful tool for the determination of complex structures and interactions, and can be performed on components with various physical phases. NMR provides significant level of molecular information and can be performed on samples that have had little or no-pretreatment makes it highly appropriate for environmental analysis. Solution-state NMR affords high resolution spectra and thus provides excellent information on structure and interactions even for very complex environmental mixtures. Presaturation Utilizing Relaxation Gradients and Echoes (PURGE) is extremely effective at selectively removing the water signal and when only the minimal irradiation field is used even signals from non-exchangeable protons from under the water signal can be recovered to some extent. Numerous NMR parameters can be utilized to provide a range of information as to the molecular orientation, motion and interactions at the molecular scale.