DOSY Plus Selective TOCSY: An Efficient NMR Combination for Analyzing Hydrogenation/Hydrogenolysis Mixtures of Biomass-Derived Platform Compounds

Abstract

Analyzing the mixtures obtained from hydrogenation or hydrogenolysis reactions of biomass-derived platform chemicals is challenging work. With the development and improvement of NMR techniques, the NMR spectrometer proves to be an alternative and highly efficient piece of equipment for the rapid analysis of complex mixtures without the need for tedious purification. Herein, diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) is applied in analyzing four model mixtures, which consist of the reactants and products from hydrogenation/hydrogenolysis reactions of biomass-derived platform chemicals. The results show that the DOSY technique can pseudoseparate most components in the model mixtures. The 1D selective gradient TOCSY technique is used as a supporting tool in the cases where the DOSY technique cannot clearly distinguish between the components of the mixtures. This is generally a problem when components in the mixture have very similar diffusion coefficients or severe overlap of peaks. The results show that DOSY and...