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Magritek, a leading provider of compact NMR and MRI instruments, reports how Dr Hilde Roex from the University College Leuven & Limburg leads second year undergraduates through an organic chemistry laboratory to show them the value of NMR spectroscopy.

The students use the Magritek Spinsolve Proton benchtop NMR spectrometer 

The University College Leuven Limburg, UCLL, is a multi-campus group in the region of Limburg and Flemish Brabant. Dr Hilde Roex is the co-ordinator of the second year organic chemistry laboratory course of the Chemistry Program (Gasthuisberg campus, Faculty Management & Technology). Here, the students apply NMR in their organic chemistry laboratory to identify the molecular structure of their synthesized products. They are taught to see the value of NMR for quality control and its use alongside other analytical methods including gas and liquid chromatography. Their goal is to be able to interpret proton NMR spectra and to learn that proton NMR and FT-IR spectroscopy are complementary techniques. This helps to make students familiar with NMR showing them applications of its wide use in industry. 

UCLL chose the Magritek Spinsolve Benchtop NMR due to its ease of use. Sample loading and cleaning is simple compared to competitive models that use tubing rather than standard 5 mm NMR sample tubes. Magritek's Spinsolve resembles the performance of a superconducting NMR and fits closer to theory too. Running a spectrum is very simple, yet very effective as illustrated in the examples from the students' practical sessions. Dr Roex explains the method she used with this year’s second semester group of students. “Students had to synthesise an alkyl bromide out of an unknown alcohol, as described in literature. Next, they had to control the purity and interpret the ¹H NMR spectrum of their obtained alkyl bromide. Finally, they had to define their unknown alcohol by comparing its spectrum with a range of pre-defined alcohol spectra. Some spectra are shown below.” 

Magritek's Spinsolve benchtop NMR spectrometers are supplied worldwide to academics in teaching and research; also to industry for research and reaction monitoring through to quality control use.

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