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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