DRA Lecture: Recent trends in probe design
Thursday, February 24th, 2005 at 15:30-16:15 in Benzon Auditorium
The Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences Universitetsparken 2, 2100 Copenhagen O
Dr. Manfred Spraul
Director, NMR Applications, Bruker BioSpin GmbH, Silberstreifen, D-76287 Rheinstetten, Germany
Abstract
NMR is an established analytical tool, giving structural and dynamic information. Its major drawback compared to other analytical technologies like mass spectroscopy is sensitivity. There are 2 main possibilities to raise sensitivity: higher magnetic field and improvement in probe design. Increasing the magnet field strength is exponentially correlated with the cost and technological challenges. The theoretical gain in sensitivity is going from 800 to 900 MHz is 19%. Therefore probe technology development plays a major role in NMR sensitivity improvement. Over the last years two major developments have improved sensitivity:
1. The introduction of cryogenic probes
2. Miniaturization
Besides sensitivity improvements probe efficiency could be increased by higher throughput with flow injection probes. Closely related to those are probes used for the coupling of chromatographic systems to the NMR. Flow inserts have been developed allowing to convert tube probes to flow probes in a few minutes, this is important especially for cryogenic probes. Another probe type to be introduced is the high-resolution magic-angle spinning probe, that allows to run heterogeneous samples under high-resolution conditions. Examples for applications of all probes are given and current sensitivity limits are discussed.
The lecture is organised by: Jerzy Jaroszewski (the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences) and is open for attendance by all interested parties.
