Direct Chiral Discrimination with NMR

Abstract

Unaided nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is considered incapable of distinguishing enantiomers. However, as first derived by A.D. Buckingham, the tensor coupling the electric and magnetic dipoles is space-dependent, which varies according to the molecular structure, hence, would be different for two enantiomers. Exploiting the odd-parity coupling tensor, a new variant of a double-resonant radiofrequency (RF) NMR detector is developed, which is sensitive to both electric and magnetic dipoles. Using the detector, a new method for liquid-state NMR is developed and elaborated, with which two enantiomers are successfully discriminated.