Application of NMR crystallography to highly disordered templated materials : extensive local structural disorder in the gallophosphate GaPO-34A

SEA, DMD, JEH and DM thank the ERC (EU FP7 Consolidator Grant 614290 “EXONMR”) for funding. SEA would like to thank the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation for a merit award. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is supported by National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement DMR-1644779 and the State of Florida.We present an NMR crystallographic investigation of two as-made forms of the recently characterised gallophosphate GaPO-34A, which has an unusual framework composition with a Ga : P ratio of 7 : 6 and contains both hydroxide and fluoride anions and either 1-methylimidazolium or pyridinium as the structure-directing agent. We combine previously reported X-ray crystallographic data with solid-state NMR spectroscopy and periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations to show that the structure contains at least three distinct types of disorder (occupational, compositional and dynamic). The occupational disorder arises from the presence of six anion sites per unit cell, but a total occupancy of these of five, leading to full occupancy of four sites and partial occupancy of the fifth and sixth (which are related by symmetry). The mixture of OH and F present leads to compositional disorder on the occupied anion sites, although the occupancy of some sites by F is calculated to be energetically unfavorable and signals relating to F on these sites are not observed by NMR spectroscopy, confirming that the compositional disorder is not random. Finally, a combination of high-field 71Ga NMR spectroscopy and variable-temperature 13C and 31P NMR experiments shows that the structure directing agents are dynamic on the microsecond timescale, which can be supported by averaging the 31P chemical shifts calculated with the SDA in different orientations. This demonstrates the value of an NMR crystallographic approach, particularly in the case of highly disordered crystalline materials, where the growth of large single crystals for conventional structure determination may not be possible owing to the extent of disorder present.PostprintPeer reviewe

Crystal structure and proton conductivity of BaSn0.6Sc0.4O3-delta: insights from neutron powder diffraction and solid-state NMR spectroscopy

The solid-state synthesis and structural characterisation of perovskite BaSn(1–x)Sc(x)O(3–δ) (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4) and its corresponding hydrated ceramics are reported. Powder and neutron X-ray diffractions reveal the presence of cubic perovskites (space group Pm3m) with an increasing cell parameter as a function of scandium concentration along with some indication of phase segregation. (119)Sn and (45)Sc solid-state NMR spectroscopy data highlight the existence of oxygen vacancies in the dry materials, and their filling upon hydrothermal treatment with D(2)O. It also indicates that the Sn(4+) and Sc(3+) local distribution at the B-site of the perovskite is inhomogeneous and suggests that the oxygen vacancies are located in the scandium dopant coordination shell at low concentrations (x ≤ 0.2) and in the tin coordination shell at high concentrations (x ≥ 0.3). (17)O NMR spectra on (17)O enriched BaSn(1–x)Sc(x)O(3–δ) materials show the existence of Sn–O–Sn, Sn–O–Sc and Sc–O–Sc bridging oxygen environments. A further room temperature neutron powder diffraction study on deuterated BaSn(0.6)Sc(0.4)O(3–δ) refines the deuteron position at the 24k crystallographic site (x, y, 0) with x = 0.579(3) and y = 0.217(3) which leads to an O–D bond distance of 0.96(1) Å and suggests tilting of the proton towards the next nearest oxygen. Proton conduction was found to dominate in wet argon below 700 °C with total conductivity values in the range 1.8 × 10(–4) to 1.1 × 10(–3) S cm(–1) between 300 and 600 °C. Electron holes govern the conduction process in dry oxidizing conditions, whilst in wet oxygen they compete with protonic defects leading to a wide mixed conduction region in the 200 to 600 °C temperature region, and a suppression of the conductivity at higher temperature

Local Structure in Disordered Melilite Revealed by Ultrahigh Field 71Ga and 139La Solid‐State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Multinuclear Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy of quadrupolar nuclei at ultrahigh magnetic field provides compelling insight into the short‐range structure in a family of fast oxide ion electrolytes with La1+xSr1–xGa3O7+0.5x melilite structure. The striking resolution enhancement in the solid‐state 71Ga NMR spectra measured with the world’s unique series connected hybrid magnet operating at 35.2 T distinctly resolves Ga sites in four‐ and five‐fold coordination environments. Detection of five‐coordinate Ga centers in the site‐disordered La1.54Sr0.46Ga3O7.27 melilite is critical given that the GaO5 unit accommodates interstitial oxide ions and provides excellent transport properties. This work highlights the importance of ultrahigh magnetic fields for the detection of otherwise broad spectral features in systems containing quadrupolar nuclei and the potential of ensemble‐based computational approaches for the interpretation of NMR data acquired for site‐disordered materials.</jats:p

Identification of different oxygen species in oxide nanostructures with O-17 solid-state NMR spectroscopy

Nanostructured oxides find multiple uses in a diverse range of applications including catalysis, energy storage, and environmental management, their higher surface areas, and, in some cases, electronic properties resulting in different physical properties from their bulk counterparts. Developing structure-property relations for these materials requires a determination of surface and subsurface structure. Although microscopy plays a critical role owing to the fact that the volumes sampled by such techniques may not be representative of the whole sample, complementary characterization methods are urgently required. We develop a simple nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) strategy to detect the first few layers of a nanomaterial, demonstrating the approach with technologically relevant ceria nanoparticles. We show that the (17)O resonances arising from the first to third surface layer oxygen ions, hydroxyl sites, and oxygen species near vacancies can be distinguished from the oxygen ions in the bulk, with higher-frequency (17)O chemical shifts being observed for the lower coordinated surface sites. H(2)(17)O can be used to selectively enrich surface sites, allowing only these particular active sites to be monitored in a chemical process. (17)O NMR spectra of thermally treated nanosized ceria clearly show how different oxygen species interconvert at elevated temperature. Density functional theory calculations confirm the assignments and reveal a strong dependence of chemical shift on the nature of the surface. These results open up new strategies for characterizing nanostructured oxides and their applications

Singlet-to-Triplet Cross-Effect Dynamic Nuclear Polarization

A new kind of cross-effect (CE) dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) using biradicals with exchange couplings larger than the g-anisotropy or g-difference is proposed. The strongly coupled biradicals can be described with a combination of singlet S0 and triplet T(0,±1) states. Despite being invisible to w irradiation and spectral detection for the singlet state, S0↔T0 singlet-triplet transition by hyperfine couplings can occur driving nuclear spin flip for cross-effect DNP process. The T0 state population and spin alignment order can be generated by selectively saturating one of the T0↔ T(±1) transitions. Introducing dipolar couplings and frequency differences between the two electrons can remove the degeneracy between the two triplet transitions enabling selective saturation to obtain singlet-to-triplet cross-effect (ST-CE) DNP

Satellite-transition double cross-polarization HETCOR under fast MAS

Double-cross polarization to the satellite-transitions (STs) of half-integer quadrupolar nuclei is demonstrated using proton-detected heteronuclear correlation (HETCOR) under fast magic-angle spinning (MAS). By placing the rf frequency away from the central-transition (CT) and selective to the STs, average Hamiltonian theory shows a scaled effective rf field with a phase equal to the complex ST spinning sideband being irradiated. Such an effective rf field can excite and spinlock STs but the phase spread usually leads to signal cancellation in one-step excitation or cross polarization experiments. The cancellation does not occur for two-step double cross-polarization (DCP) HETCOR experiments such that high efficiencies can be obtained. With careful magic-angle calibration, ST and double-quantum ST (DQST) HETCOR experiments are demonstrated with the 35Cl nuclei in histidine·HCl·H2O. These experiments provide additional information over the commonly observed CT spectra and near isotropic resolution in the case of DQST of spin S = 3/2 quadrupolar nuclei

Medium-range order in disordered K-feldspars by multinuclear NMR

The structures of K-rich feldspar, (K>Na)AlSi3O8, are currently described as >ideal> crystals with periodic average structures from Bragg diffraction maxima obtained by reciprocal-space techniques. Polymorphism is explained by variable substitutional disorder of framework Si and Al cations in tetrahedral T sites, and positional disorder of cavity alkali cations in a single M site. Here, high-resolution magic angle spinning multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, leading to 29Si, 27Al, and 23Na spectra at 9.4 as well as 27Al, 39K, and 23Na spectra at 19.6 T, has been used to investigate the >real> structures along the order-disorder series of K-feldspar crystals. The >ideal> and >real> structure coincides only in the perfectly long-range ordered triclinic end-member of the low-microcline structure. Long-range disordered structures (either with monoclinic or triclinic symmetry by X-ray diffraction) show non-random disorder at the medium-range scale, triclinic-like distortions with four sets of T sites for framework atoms, two sets of M sites for alkali atoms, and Al-O-(K,Na) multi-site correlations by NMR spectroscopy. The K-feldspar structures can be described by a medium-range structure using the number of Al atoms per four-membered rings of tetrahedra, with >...-2-0-2-0-...> chains for microcline and orthoclase where the Al-occupancies t1O > t2m > t2O ≈ t1m, and with >...-1-1-1-1-...> chains for valencianite and sanidine, in which t1O > t2m ≈ t2O ≈ t1m. Framework cations respect Loewenstein's rule (Al-O-Al avoidance), as well as some additional constraints of charge dispersion involving deficiency of Si atoms in Q4 (4Si,0Al), (1Si,3Al), and (0Si,4Al) environments, constraints which are particularly strong in valencianite. These >real> structure features cannot be described by >ideal> structures owing to the lack of resolving power of the reciprocal-space techniques.Peer Reviewe

Comparison of high-resolution solid-state NMR MQMAS and STMAS methods for half-integer quadrupolar nuclei

International audienceSeveral different amplitude-modulated two-dimensional high-resolution methods, based on MQMAS and STMAS, are compared. They include 3QMAS. 5QMAS, DQ-STMAS, and DQF-STMAS experiments. A new method, called t(1)-split-STMAS, is also proposed for spin-3/2 nuclei. The comparison is performed in terms of isotropic resolution and spectral-width, efficiency, and sensitivity to magic-angle offset and spinning speed fluctuations

Proton-detected 14N MAS NMR using homonuclear decoupled rotary resonance

International audienceA robust sensitivity-enhanced 1H/14N MAS HMQC experiment is described for proton-detected 14N NMR of solids. The sensitivity enhancement is achieved by using dipolar recoupling for coherence transfer with a so-called n = 2 rotary resonance. Rotary resonance occurs when a cw rf field matches certain ratios with the sample spinning frequency, n = ω1/ωr. The theory of rotary resonance for chemical shift anisotropy, heteronuclear and homonuclear dipolar interactions is presented in the irreducible representation. It is shown that the n = 2 rotary resonance decouples the homonuclear dipolar interactions while recoupling the heteronuclear dipolar interaction for proton-detected 14N NMR. The dipolar recoupling, T2′ lengthening, and 1H/14N HMQC experiment under the n = 2 rotary resonance are demonstrated