ABSTRACT
In recent years, high-resolution solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has emerged as a powerful complementary method to diffraction techniques for the investigation of zeolite molecular sieve structures. This chapter presents a description of the development of solid-state NMR as applied to zeolites and related systems, with particular emphasis on recent work and ongoing developments in the field. Although there has been some effort directed toward the study of adsorbed species and reactions of guest molecules within zeolite cavities, the chapter focuses its discussion on investigations of the molecular sieve frameworks themselves. It discusses the information regarding zeolite structure available through study of these nuclei and the interactions of their spins with local electric and magnetic fields. Zeolite ZSM-5 has the most complex unit cell of any zeolite system, and its structure represents a very demanding test of the reliability of these techniques, there being either 12 or 24 T-sites depending on the phase.
