ABSTRACT
Some groups in the pharmaceutical industry are trying some entirely different approaches to introducing samples into the NMR spectrometer. All of these tech-niques can be grouped into a category called “flow NMR,” and they all use “flow probes” (Fig. 2g), even though the samples may or may not be flowing at the time of NMR acquisition. The first example of this approach is HPLC-NMR, more commonly called just LC-NMR. More recently, direct-injection NMR (DI-NMR) and flow injection analysis NMR (FIANMR) have been developed as ways to acquire NMR data without the use of the traditional precision-glass sample tubes. By interfacing robotic autosamplers and liquid handlers to NMR spectrometers, samples in disposable vials and 96-well microtiter plates are now routinely being analyzed by NMR.
