Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles Loaded with Surfactant: Low Temperature Magic Angle Spinning13C and29Si NMR Enhanced by Dynamic Nuclear Polarization

Published: Wednesday, 23 January 2013 - 22:20 UTC

Author:

Lafon, O., et al., Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles Loaded with Surfactant: Low Temperature Magic Angle Spinning13C and29Si NMR Enhanced by Dynamic Nuclear Polarization. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2013: p. 130110124207001.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp310109s

We show that dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) can be used to enhance NMR signals of 13C and 29Si nuclei located in mesoporous organic/inorganic hybrid materials, at several hundreds of nanometers from stable radicals (TOTAPOL) trapped in the surrounding frozen disordered water. The approach is demonstrated using mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN), functionalized with 3-(N-phenylureido)propyl (PUP) groups, filled with the surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The DNP-enhanced proton magnetization is transported into the mesopores via 1H?1H spin diffusion and transferred to rare spins by cross-polarization, yielding signal enhancements εon/off of around 8. When the CTAB molecules are extracted, so that the radicals can enter the mesopores, the enhancements increase to εon/off ≈ 30 for both nuclei. A quantitative analysis of the signal enhancements in MSN with and without surfactant is based on a one-dimensional proton spin diffusion model. The effect of solvent deuteration is also investigated.