Principle Investigator: Mateusz Urbańczyk

Grant SONATA 18 (National Science Centre, Poland), 2022/47/D/ST4/00846

About the project:

This project aims to create a new setup for low-field studies of complex reactions systems using our recently presented approach utilizing the synergy of interleaved Time-Resolved Non-Uniform Sampling (TR-NUS) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Time-Resolved Laplace (TR-L) NMR[1] using a low-field spectrometer. The main goal of the project is to develop and adapt the aforementioned methodology from a proof of concept to a powerful, robust analytical tool that can be of help to organic chemists working on the cutting-edge projects. To achieve that, we will first develop Interleaved TR-NUS and TR-L (I-TR-NUS&TR-L) NMR methods to the low-field spectrometers and adapt those methods to be compatible with the flow. After the development phase, we will utilize the new method to study important processes like reversible photopolymerization and click-polymerization. Finally, we will use the information-rich data provided by I-TR-NUS&TR-L to make the automatic optimization setup for the aforementioned reactions. Based on the automatic reactor, an I-TR-NUS&TR-L running benchtop spectrometer, and machine learning algorithms, we will be able to achieve a higher yield and control the reaction to stop at the desired length of the polymer. By providing such a setup, we will create a new tool for fast and robust optimization of complex reactions that will provide a better understanding of the chemical processes.

[1] K. Kristinaityte, A. Mames, M. Pietrzak, F. F. Westermair, W. Silva, R. M. Gschwind, T. Ratajczyk, and M. Urbańczyk, “Deeper Insight into Photopolymerization: The Synergy of Time-Resolved Nonuniform Sampling and Diffusion NMR,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 144, pp. 13938–13945, 7 2022.