Precise and accurate quantitative 13C NMR with reduced experimental time

In order to detect small variations in C-13 isotopomers concentrations, high sensitivity, accuracy and precision have to be achieved. To assess such criteria, when using C-13 NMR, C-13 bi-labelled ethanol has been proposed as a molecular probe. Advantage has been taken of the pre-established structural relationship between the peak areas of the C-13 NMR spectrum of this molecule, i.e. the ratio of signal areas is set to a fixed value. It is shown that the quality performance, required by quantitative C-13 NMR spectroscopy, is not affected by a large reduction of the repetition delay using relaxation reagents. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.