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Overview
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AffiliationTelephone
Professor in the Department of Chemistry+44 (0) 191 33 42019

Biography

Research Interests

NMR in the solid-state can provide detailed information on structure and dynamics in solid materials. Our research combines the development and evaluation of new techniques with applications to particular chemical problems, bridging the connection between the worlds of method development and practical application. We have an excellent range of facilities, based around dedicated solid-state NMR spectrometers: a 500 MHz research instrument, supported by two 400 MHz systems in our Solid-State NMR Service. Research projects can be largely experimental, largely theoretical/computational, or, more typically, a mix of experiment and computation.

Developments in solid-state and liquid crystal NMR of small molecules
Effects of decoupling on fluorine-containing guest in a urea inclusion complex

Advances in hardware and methodology allow many of the elegant techniques of solution-state NMR to be applied to solid samples. We collaborate with a number of pharmaceutical companies (past and present sponsors include AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline) to develop experimental techniques suitable for the study of pharmaceutical systems e.g. improving the sensitivity of 15N NMR to allow drug molecules to be characterised in formulated products, or characterizing the hydrogen-bonding in different polymorphs of the same substance.

At a more fundamental level, we have long-standing interests in the study of condensed phases with relatively high mobility, such as plastic crystals and other soft solids. This allows to characterise subtle NMR phenomena that are difficult to identify in classic solid-state NMR (as illustrated for a urea inclusion compound).

 
Structure and dynamics in inorganic systems
Oxygen exchange in zirconium tungstate

We also apply solid-state NMR to study of inorganic / hybrid framework materials. Characterisation of the structure of these materials by (powder) diffraction techniques alone is difficult, but combining the local information on structure and dynamics from multi-nuclear NMR (e.g. 2H, 31P) with the long-range structural information from diffraction studies, provide a much fuller understanding of these complex materials. The example illustrates the use of 17O NMR to study the dynamics of oxygen motion in ZrW2O8: solid-state NMR is only technique that allows to both quantify the dynamics and identify its chemical nature. We are continue to explore how solid-state NMR, powder XRD and first principles calculations can be integrated to solve increasingly complex structural problems.

Research interests

  • Solid-state NMR (theory and applications)
  • Dynamics in the Solid State
  • NMR Crystallography

Publications

Chapter in book

Journal Article

Supervision students