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Topic: Tiny NMR at the bench?  (Read 8987 times)

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Offline johncprice

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Tiny NMR at the bench?
« on: December 14, 2010, 09:37:29 AM »
There is a new company making a miniature proton NMR spectrometer that only costs $20K:

www.picospin.com

There are example spectra posted on the Applications pages.

So, the question is this:  what are these things good for?

Full disclosure:  I'm the president of the company  ;)

Regards,
John
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Offline TheUnfocusedOne

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2010, 11:28:50 AM »
I think your major market would be Academia, mostly for teaching.

Depending on how sensitive and accurate it is you might have a chance for a first pass QC check in some pharma or other production places, though I'd image this is much less likely.

I've recently seen a similar idea for GC which was also geared towards teaching.

Good luck with your sales.
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Offline MissPhosgene

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2010, 12:02:14 PM »
This is an excellent idea. If I had the money, I would probably get one, or at least spend a lot of time to convince the department that it would be super awesome.

Can you post sample spectra here?
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Offline TheUnfocusedOne

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2010, 12:05:35 PM »
There's one already listed on the website in the Applications tab.

The more I look at it the more I like it for teaching.  I'm always weary about letting first and second year undergrads (mostly biologist in my experience  ::)) play around with an instrument that can easily exceed a quater million dollars.

I think you might have something here...
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Offline MissPhosgene

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2010, 12:38:09 PM »
Quote from: TheUnfocusedOne on December 14, 2010, 12:05:35 PM
There's one already listed on the website in the Applications tab.

The more I look at it the more I like it for teaching.  I'm always weary about letting first and second year undergrads (mostly biologist in my experience  ::)) play around with an instrument that can easily exceed a quater million dollars.

I think you might have something here...

Yup, the spectra don't look bad. This could be very awesome for you JohnCPrice as well as your company. Benchtop!

The answer to your question is that this instrument might be good for many things. A more powerful instrument will be necessary for full analysis of structures. I would make use of it by taking a basis spectra of a compound, SM, for example, and comparing it to the final product. I'd make myself a reference library of intermediates which I continually have to re-make, use the instrument plus the library to 1. localize what I am doing so I can eliminate the back and forth between the lab and NMR facility and 2. increase the rate at which I can work. If I am aware of the reproducibility of a reaction and am getting NMR spectra to verify an outcome I have previously repeated many times, there really isn't much of a point in spending the time it takes to go to the 400 mHZ to get a spectrum when a benchtop instrument is available. In conjunction with TLC this could be extremely useful. I know the number of scans is pretty large, but that means I can stay in the lab and get more things done in the meantime.

With the resolution shown in the website spectra, I probably wouldn't use it for analysis of new (to me) reactions and structures until I can verify with a more powerful instrument.

It's super awesome.
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Offline OC pro

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2010, 03:14:03 PM »
From my point of view (org chemist, pharmaceutical industry) I don´t see a big market for this machine. 20k is too expensive for academia I suppose. You will get a proper GC-MS for 20k which will help way more than your NMR machine. And I think the resolution is very low. The spectra you show don´t convince me at all. It makes only sense with very simple compounds (which you show).
In industry, in >95% cases HPLC analysis is performed for reaction control. Good old TLC analysis is much cheaper (and you learn more). I feel the new students don´t learn this any more. They are just following GC-MS and HPLC-MS and search for new peaks...
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Offline TheUnfocusedOne

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2010, 03:35:18 PM »
Quote from: OC pro on December 14, 2010, 03:14:03 PM
From my point of view (org chemist, pharmaceutical industry) I don´t see a big market for this machine. 20k is too expensive for academia I suppose. You will get a proper GC-MS for 20k which will help way more than your NMR machine. And I think the resolution is very low. The spectra you show don´t convince me at all. It makes only sense with very simple compounds (which you show).
In industry, in >95% cases HPLC analysis is performed for reaction control. Good old TLC analysis is much cheaper (and you learn more). I feel the new students don´t learn this any more. They are just following GC-MS and HPLC-MS and search for new peaks...


What GC/MS system are you looking at...?  You could probably get a low end GC for that much, but no way can you get a new GC/MS for that much, atleast not one worth having.

Also, an NMR and a GC/MS are completely different instruments.  An NMR can do things that an GC/MS cant, such as identify isomer. Its not a very good comparison, especially in a teaching sense.
(I'm not trying to come off as a dick, I'm just disagreeing.)

« Last Edit: December 14, 2010, 03:49:06 PM by TheUnfocusedOne »
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Offline MissPhosgene

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2010, 03:45:17 PM »
What about for non-volatiles? A HPLC-MS is also incredibly expensive, I think.
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Offline ckellz

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Re: Tiny NMR at the bench?
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2011, 08:29:06 PM »
I actually think this is a great idea and for a pretty reasonable price as far as NMRs go...I do have an idea for you though. I work with flow reactors quite often. I think this would make a great tool for in-situ reaction monitoring. Would it be possible to interface it with a flow in and flow out to actually monitor the progress of a reaction?
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