NMR diffusion and relaxation correlation methods: New insights in heterogeneous materials

• Improved resolution of the NMR signals from distinct microscopic environments.
• Detailed information about molecular dynamics and exchange in complex structures.
• Applications to, e.g., liquid crystals, food, biological tissues, and porous rocks.
• Enhanced characterization of compounds in multi-component mixtures such as crude oils.
• Recent developments of experimental methods and analysis approaches.

Heterogeneous materials, such as biological tissues, foodstuffs, and rocks, contain a range of microscopic environments where the molecular constituents often have different NMR relaxation time constants and self-diffusion coefficients. Multidimensional correlation methods have greatly improved the possibility for separating and assigning the NMR responses from distinct environments, thereby allowing for a more complete characterization of structure, dynamics, and molecular exchange in heterogeneous materials. Here, we review recent developments in experimental methodology and data analysis approaches.

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