NMR Studies of Inclusion Compounds

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents the application of some of the NMR methods in studying host-guest complexes, mainly in solution. The general focus of the work is on investigating the reorientational dynamics of some small molecules that are bound inside cavities of larger moieties. In the current work, these moieties belong to two groups: cryptophanes and cyclodextrins. Depending on the structure of the cavities, properties of the guest molecules and the formed complexes vary. Chloroform and dichloromethane are in slow exchange between the cage-like cavity of the cryptophanes and the solvent, on the chemical shift time scale, whereas adamantanecarboxylic acid, quinuclidine and 1,7-heptanediol in complex with cyclodextrins are examples of fast exchange. Kinetics and thermodynamics of complexation are studied by measuring exchange rates and translational self-diffusion coefficients by means of 1-dimenssional exchange spectroscopy and pulsed-field gradient (PFG) NMR methods, respectively. The association constants, calculated using the above information give estimates of the thermodynamic stability of the complexes. Carbon-13 spin relaxation data were obtained using conventional relaxation experiments, such as inversion recovery and dynamic NOE, and in some cases HSQC-type (Hetereonuclear Single Quantum Correlation Spectroscopy) experiments. Motional parameters for the free and bound guest, and the host molecules were extracted using different motional models, such as Lipari-Szabo, axially symmetric rigid body, and Clore models. Comparing the overall correlation times and the order parameters of the free and bound guest with the overall correlation time of the host molecule one can estimate the degree of the motional restriction, brought by the complexation, and the coupling between the motion of the bound guest and the reorientation of the host molecule. In one case, the guest motions were also investigated inside the cavities of a solid host material.