ABSTRACT
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been widely used to characterize zeolite structure, acidity, and binding sites, and to study catalytic reactions or sorption processes that occur within the pores of zeolites. NMR is a probe of local structure and often serves as a complementary tool for the probe of long-range order, namely, diffraction. The NMR spectra are sensitive to a range of local interactions, which provide detailed spatial and chemical information. Furthermore, NMR spectroscopy is a quantitative probe of the whole sample and, thus, can be used or to follow the fate of molecules inside the pores of the zeolite, during a catalytic reaction or following gas sorption, or to determine, for example, the extent of aluminum substitution into the zeolite framework. The time scale of the interactions probed by NMR spectroscopy can be close to the time scale of many motional processes, and so NMR can be used to study the dynamics of molecules sorbed in the pores of the zeolites or to study longer range diffusional processes (see Chapter 10).
