Quantitative Comparison of REAPDOR and TRAPDOR Experiments by Numerical Simulations and Determination of H–Al Distances in Zeolites

Abstract

Quantitative H–Al distances in acid sites of two zeolites with MFI and IFR framework topology were obtained by numerical simulation of 1H{27Al} rotational echo adiabatic passage double resonance (REAPDOR) experiments. A 27Al offset-dependent data set yields for each resolved 1H NMR line a corresponding nuclear electric quadrupole coupling constant of the neighboring 27Al site. This information is used for analyzing a second data set for on-resonance irradiation, where the dipolar evolution time (number of rotor cycles) was varied, to yield the 1H–27Al dipolar coupling constant. Numerical simulations indicate that the REAPDOR method does not depend significantly on the polar angles, defining the orientation of the electric field gradient tensor of 27Al with respect to the Al–H dipolar vector. In contrast, the transfer of populations in double resonance sequence is sensitive to these angles, and it can be thus used to measure them.