The Russell Varian Prize 2010: call for nominations

The Russell Varian prize honors the memory of the pioneer behind the first commercial Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometers and co-founder of Varian Associates. The prize is awarded to a researcher based on a single innovative contribution (a single paper, patent, lecture, or piece of hardware) that has proven of high and broad impact on state-of-the-art NMR technology. The prize aims to award the initial contribution that laid the ground for the specific technology of great importance in state-of-the-art NMR. It is sponsored by Varian Inc. and carries a monetary award of 15,000 Euro. The award ceremony will take place at the XXIVth ICMRBS meeting in Cairns, Australia, August 22-27, 2010. The deadline for nominations is February 15, 2010.

For nomination guidelines see Varian

Recognition: Andre Simpson

Andre Simpson (University of Toronto) is the recipient of the 2010 CSC Fred Beamish Award. This award is presented to individuals who demonstrate innovation in research in the field of Analytical Chemistry, in particular, where research is anticipated to have significant potential for practical applications.

Web: Andre Simpson's Group at the University of Toronto Scarborough

Cover article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry

Crystalline beta-Barium Borate is an important nonlinear optical material often used in frequency mixing. Interestingly enough, even though beta-Barium Borate has been known for years, there still exists a controversy about its true crystallographic space group. That is existed until now! In this cover article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C a research team from the University of Western Ontario has solved this problem using ultrahigh-field solid-state NMR spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations.

Andre Sutrisno, Cheng Lu, Robert Lipson, Yining Huang, "Combined 135/137Ba Solid-state NMR at an Ultrahigh Magnetic Field and Computational Study of beta-Barium Borate," Journal of Physical Chemistry C 113 (2009) 21196–21201. (Cover Article) http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp9044786

This is a seventh cover article featuring results obtained using resources of the National Ultrahigh-Field NMR Facility for Solids. See our cover gallery and the complete list of research publications enabled by the Facility here (complete list).

Cover article in Nature Chemistry

A research team from the University of Calgary and the NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences (Ottawa) has published a cover article in Nature Chemistry

J.A. Hurd, R. Vaidhyanathan, V. Thangadurai, C.I. Ratcliffe, I.L. Moudrakovski and G.K.H. Shimizu, "Proton Conduction at 150°C in a Nanoporous Metal-Organic Framework," Nature Chemistry 1 (2009) 705-710. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.402

"Materials built from metal centres and organic ligands have traditionally attracted attention for their channels' host–guest properties. Now, controlling the occupancy of the channels by guest molecules has resulted in a framework that conducts protons under anhydrous conditions and acts as a gas-tight membrane, offering a promising approach to fuel-cell electrolytes."

Solid-state NMR spectroscopy was instrumental in this research.

The paper is also accompanied by the Nature's commentary:

Hiroshi Kitagawa, "Metal–organic frameworks: Transported into fuel cells," Nature Chemistry 1 (2009) 689-690. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.454

Feature article: Concepts in Magnetic Resonance

R.M. Gregory, A.D. Bain, "The effects of finite rectangular pulses in NMR: Phase and intensity distortions for a spin-1/2," Concepts in Magnetic Resonance Part A 34A (2009) 305-314. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cmr.a.20147

Abstract

Pulses in NMR spectrometers have a finite length, but the usual hard-pulse assumption ignores it, and treats the pulse as a rotation of the frame of reference about the direction of the radiofrequency (RF) magnetic field. However, at frequency offsets comparable to the size of the RF field, there are substantial distortions, mainly in the phase of the signal. This effect is well known and can be easily calculated to show that, despite the complex geometry, the phase distortion is almost linear with the offset. This means that it can be corrected by a first-order phase correction or by small corrections to pulse-sequence timing. In this article, we give an analysis of these effects. The deviations from a linear phase correction are analyzed for a general rectangular pulse and illustrated with experimental spectra. The split-operator approximation for the evolution of this system provides a mathematical foundation and a useful method for this analysis. Furthermore, the relationship between the exact behavior of a signal is compared to the Fourier transform of a rectangular pulse. For typical offsets, the match between these approaches is not good, but it improves as the offset increases. Overall, the detailed analysis of the finite pulse effects gives exact results of the response of a spin system, but also some mathematical and physical insights.

CSC 2010: call for papers

The 93rd Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition (CSC2010) is being held in Toronto, May 29-June 2, 2010. The conference theme “Diversity in Chemistry” emphasizes the wide range of science to be presented and the diversity of people that make up our field. The conference is presented by the Canadian Society for Chemistry and hosted by the Department of Chemistry of the University of Toronto. You can view the wide range of symposia representing the “Diversity in Chemistry” theme on the CSC2010 website

http://www.csc2010.ca/program/symposia.html

The CSC 2010 conference will feature the "Solid-State NMR: Methods and Applications" symposium being organized by David Bryce (University of Ottawa) and Gillian Goward (McMaster University).

The Call for Papers opened today December 1, 2009 and will close February 15, 2010. Details are available at
http://www.csc2010.ca/program/submit_abstract.html