Quantifying the Formation of Stereoisomers by Benchtop NMR Spectroscopy - Applications Note

NMR spectroscopy is a powerful analytical tool in terms of structure elucidation and quantification of chemical moieties. In contrast with other methods, NMR does not require calibration or the synthesis of reference compounds for the analysis. These advantages become especially important when stereoisomers of a given chemical structure are present in the sample. The only alternative to NMR is chiral HPLC, however the retention times must be calibrated against the pure synthesized references which is time consuming and expensive. In this application note we demonstrate how Spinsolve™ benchtop NMR spectrometers can be used to follow on-line the kinetics of an Horner– Wadsworth–Emmons (HWE) reaction, where the stereochemical outcome needs to be monitored. The experiments performed in this work show the power of the new SpinsolveTM 80 MHz ULTRA benchtop NMR device, and its world-leading resolution, sensitivity, and stability, which enable it to identify and quantify both possible stereoisomers on-line [1].