L'objectif de ces travaux a été de démontrer l'intérêt d'appliquer la Résonance Magnétique Nucléaire (RMN) à des problématiques analytiques dans le domaine des produits de santé. Deux axes principaux ont été abordés. Le premier cible principalement les compléments alimentaires adultérés. Les études ont été menées par RMN à haut champ. Diverses expériences de RMN mono et bidimensionnelles ont permis de mettre en évidence la présence illicite, dans des compléments alimentaires déclarés comme naturels, de médicaments à visée érectile et/ou de leurs analogues structuraux. Ces substances actives peuvent induire, à l'insu du consommateur, des risques importants pour sa santé. De plus, des analyses menées par RMN 1H et 13C ont permis de révéler des cas d'adultération de compléments alimentaires pour sportifs par des substances considérées comme dopantes par la règlementation en vigueur. Le second axe a été mené en explorant les potentialités de la RMN à bas champ pour l'analyse de médicaments. Cette technique, moins onéreuse et plus adaptée à des analyses de routine que la RMN à haut champ, s'est avérée très efficace pour mettre en évidence des cas de médicaments falsifiés par de simples expériences RMN 1H monodimensionnelles. Des expériences bidimensionnelles de diffusion (DOSY : Diffusion Ordered SpectroscopY), qui permettent d'obtenir la séparation virtuelle des constituants d'un mélange complexe, ont été mises au point et appliquées, pour la première fois, à la dé-formulation d'un médicament. / The purpose of this research was to demonstrate the interest of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) to deal with analytical issues in the field of health products. The studies focused on two main axes. The first one targeted adulterated dietary supplements and the studies were conducted with high-field NMR. Various mono and bidimensional experiments revealed the illegal presence in dietary supplements claimed as natural, of erectile drugs and/or their structural analogues. These active substances can induce, without the consumer's knowledge, significant risks to his health. Moreover, analyses conducted with 1H and 13C NMR, highlighted cases of adulteration of dietary supplements for exercise and athletic performance with doping substances. The second axis explored the potential of low-field NMR for drug analysis. This technique, which is less expensive and more suitable for routine analyses than high-field NMR, has proved very effective in detecting cases of falsified medicines by simple one-dimensional 1H NMR experiments. Two-dimensional diffusion experiments (DOSY: Diffusion Ordered Spectroscopy), which provide virtual separation of the constituents of a complex mixture, were developed and applied for the first time to the de-formulation of a drug.

Dois dos principais aspectos da Química de Produtos Naturais são a identificação e a determinação estrutural dos compostos orgânicos presentes em materiais de origem vegetal ou animal. Para realizar esta tarefa são empregados diversos métodos de separação e espectroscópicos. Dentre os métodos espectroscópicos, destaca-se a espectroscopia de ressonância magnética nuclear pela riqueza dos dados fornecidos. Entretanto, o desenvolvimento da área exige métodos cada vez mais eficientes e sensíveis, para permitir o estudo de amostras em quantidades cada vez menores. Neste trabalho, empregamos três estratégias distintas para aumentar a eficiência da análise de amostras de produtos naturais por RMN. A primeira estratégia busca acelerar o processo de identificação dos componentes de frações de extratos vegetais através da separação virtual dos componentes da mistura, baseada nas diferenças de seus coeficientes de difusão. Esta estratégia permitiu identificar os quatro componentes majoritários da fração em acetato de etila do extrato etanólico das partes aéreas de Bidens sulphurea (Asteraceae) através de um estudo de RMN DOSY-2D. A segunda estratégia é dedicada ao problema da baixa sensibilidade da RMN 13C, o que torna difícil, e em alguns casos, proibitiva em termos do tempo necessário, a análise de amostras muito pequenas. Dada a dificuldade de se obter diretamente um espectro com uma relação sinal/ruído adequada, uma abordagem possível se baseia em estratégias de pós-processamento de um espectro de RMN em que predomina o ruído. A estratégia utilizada neste trabalho fornece um espectro reconstruído de secções que foram previamente processadas para a eliminação do ruído pela decomposição do valor singular (SVD). Os espectros assim processados nos auxiliaram na identificação e/ou elucidação estrutural de dois alcalóides obtidos de Duguetia furfuraceae (Annonaceae) e um poliacetileno e dois flavonóides de B. sulphurea (Asteraceae). A terceira estratégia utilizada neste trabalho se baseia na ampliação dos parâmetros rotineiramente obtidos numa análise por RMN, com a finalidade de fornecer novos subsídios para a determinação da estrutura de produtos naturais. Neste sentido, a determinação das constantes de acoplamento heteronuclear forneceu dados valiosos para a identificação de dois poliacetilenos obtidos de B. gardneri. / Two major aspects of Natural Products Chemistry are the identification and structure determination of organic compounds in materials of vegetable or animal. To accomplish this task are used various methods of separation and spectroscopic. Among spectroscopic methods, we highlight the spectroscopy of nuclear magnetic resonance by the wealth of data provided. However, the development of the area requires methods increasingly efficient and sensitive to allow the study of small or diluted samples. In this work, we employ three different strategies to increase the efficiency of analysis of samples of natural products by NMR. The first strategy seeks to accelerate the process of identifying the components of fractions of plant extracts through the virtual separation of the components of the mixture based on differences in their diffusion coefficients. With this strategy we have identified four major components of the in ethyl acetate fraction of ethanol extract of aerial parts of Bidens sulphurea (Asteraceae) by 2D DOSY NMR. The second strategy is devoted to the problem of low sensitivity of 13C NMR, which makes it difficult, and in some cases prohibitive in terms of time, the analysis of very small samples. Due to the difficulty of obtaining directly a spectrum with a signal-to-noise ratio adequate, a possible approach is based on strategies for post-processing of an NMR spectrum in which noise predominates. This strategy used here provides a spectrum of reconstructed sections were first processed to remove noise by singular value decomposition (SVD). Spectra processed of this way helped us in identifying and / or structural elucidation of two alkaloids derived from Duguetia furfuraceae (Annonaceae) and a polyacetylene and two flavonoids from Bidens gardneri (Asteraceae). The third strategy used in this work is based on expansion of the parameters routinely obtained in an analysis by NMR in order to provide new subsidies for the structure determination of natural products. In this sense, the determination of heteronuclear coupling constants provided valuable data for the identification of two polyacetylenes obtained from B. gardneri.

Orientador: Claudio Francisco Tormena / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Química / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T02:29:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Favaro_DenizeCristina_D.pdf: 6372818 bytes, checksum: c89cc5eb491bd0129e563fc2dd200aac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: A tese "Estudo dos mecanismos de transmissão dos acoplamentos escalares via ligações e/ou via nuvem eletrônica próxima no espaço e estudos de difusão (DOSY) de 19F" é composta de 5 capítulos. O primeiro capítulo é uma visão geral sobre Ressonância Magnética Nuclear (RMN), sequências de pulso para determinação experimental das constantes de acoplamento, mecanismos envolvidos na transmissão desse importante parâmetro de RMN e Teoria dos Orbitais Naturais de Ligação (NBO). No segundo capítulo há uma introdução sobre acoplamentos transmitidos "espacialmente" (TS). Posteriormente, os valores de nJFN, cujo n4, são correlacionados com distância (dFN) e densidade eletrônica ao longo do caminho do acoplamento. No terceiro capítulo os mecanismos de transmissão da constante de acoplamento JFH em 2-F-benzaldeído foram investigados. A motivação para este estudo foi a observação do maior valor dessa constante em meio polar. Os resultados teóricos mostraram que a forma sinperiplanar é a mais estável, porém a porcentagem da forma antiperiplanar aumenta em solvente polar. Além disso, os resultados teóricos suportam um JFH maior para a forma anti. Esses resultados corroboram com o dado experimental acima mencionado. Seguindo a apresentação dos resultados, o capítulo 4 versa sobre o uso de constante de acoplamento vicinal (3JCH) para a determinação da estereoquímica de duplas ligações. Primeiro apresentamos a metodologia sel-HSQMBC-TOCSY utilizada para determinação do acoplamento 3JCH. Posteriormente apresentamos uma racionalização para os valores observados para derivados de quinolina e pirrolizidinonas, mostrando a importância da ocupância dos orbitais e da % de caráter s dos carbonos envolvidos para a transmissão desse acoplamento. Por fim, no capítulo 5 são apresentados os resultados para os experimentos de DOSY (Diffusion Ordered SpectroscopY). Neste capítulo apresentamos a sequência Oneshot-19F{1H} uma modificação da sequência original Oneshot-1H para detecção de 19F com desacoplamento de 1H / Abstract: The thesis "Study of the mechanisms of transmission of the scalar couplings through bond and/or through the electronic cloud close in space and studies of diffusion (DOSY) of 19F" is composed by 5 chapters. The first chapter is an overview of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), pulse sequences to determine experimentally scalar spin-spin coupling constants (SSCC), mechanisms involved in the transmission of SSCC and Natural Bond Orbital analysis (NBO). The second chapter introduced the through space coupling constant (TS) transmission pathway. In addition, it was proposed a correlation among the values of nJFN, with n?4, the distance (dFN) and the electronic density along the coupling pathway. In the third chapter the mechanisms involved in the transmission of the JFH coupling constant in 2-F-benzaldehyde were investigated. The experimental observation of a higher coupling constant in polar solvent compared to the nonpolar one was our motivation to evaluate in details this coupling constant. It is important to highlight that was not possible to determine experimentally this coupling constant in nonpolar solvent because the value is smaller than spectral resolution. From theoretical calculation it was observed that the syn periplanar is the most stable conformer, however the population of the antiperiplanar conformer increases in polar solvent. Besides, the theoretical results support higher JFH value for the antiperiplanar conformer in comparison to syn periplanar. These results are in agreement with the experimental. Following the discussion, chapter 4 is related to the application of vicinal coupling constant (3JCH) for relatively stereochemical determination. The experimental 3JCH coupling was measured using sel-HSQMBC-TOCSY pulse sequence. In addition, it was done a rationalization of the couplings observed for quinolines and pirrozilidinones derivatives, suggesting that the % s character of the carbons and occupancy of the orbitals involved in the coupling pathway describes the experimental behavior. Finally, chapter 5 introduces the use of DOSY (Diffusion Ordered SpectroscopY). For this purpose, It was designed a pulse sequence dubbed Oneshot-19F{1H} ¿ consisting in a modification of the original Oneshot-1H to allow radiofrequency changes between 1H and 19F channels and a 1H decoupling during 19F acquisition / Doutorado / Quimica Organica / Doutora em Ciências

A unique characteristic of NMR is that, unlike other spectroscopic techniques, it separates the excitation of signals from their detection. By manipulating the type of signal excitation used, the chemical information content of a spectrum can be controlled. This versatility has made NMR a powerful and flexible weapon in the analytical arsenal of chemists, not only for the determination of structural, chemical, dynamic, and physical properties of molecules, but also for the analysis of mixtures, since NMR has the ability to study these intact without the need for physical separation. Chapter 1 contains an introduction to the theoretical NMR background necessary for this thesis. Chapter 2, 3 and 6 detail the development of new methods that suppress 13C satellites not only in conventional 1D 1H and 19F spectra, but also in 1H DOSY spectra, and can facilitate the analysis of minor components in high dynamic range mixtures (i.e. those with a wide range of concentrations). Chapter 4 introduces a new experiment which suppresses low-level artefacts in pure shift NMR, and gives clean pure shift spectra that can be used for the detection of minor components in the presence of strong signals. Chapter 5 and 7 illustrate how 19F NMR can be exploited for the acquisition of simplified proton spectra associated with a given 19F chemical shift, or for the virtual separation of mixture components using broadband 19F DOSY. Chapter 8 summarises the conclusions extracted from the research introduced in the main body of this thesis, and gives suggestions for future developments. Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 contain published research articles and their Supporting Information and are presented without modification. Chapter 6 is presented as a manuscript intended for publication.

Submitted by Sandra Pereira (srpereira@ufrrj.br) on 2017-02-15T16:34:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Vitor dos Santos Almeida.pdf: 2652432 bytes, checksum: 7f27ae8d8b345f1dc55ee863302bfda7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-15T16:34:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Vitor dos Santos Almeida.pdf: 2652432 bytes, checksum: 7f27ae8d8b345f1dc55ee863302bfda7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-15 / The analysis of mixtures is a common place challenge in the laboratory. Conventional methods demand a previous treatment which may be time consuming. At present, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance may be employed for the analysis of mixtures by using the DOSY (diffusion ordered spectroscopy) technique, whereby the different components of a mixture are separated by their diffusion coefficients. Pitches, in general, are products which are employed as starting material for the production of a variety of carbon materials, such as anodes for the production of aluminum, graphite electrodes for the steel industry, and carbon fibers. Pitches obtained from coal tar, itself a residue in the production of coke, are the most traditionally used. However, it is a carcinogen and therefore has had its use greatly diminished. Petroleum pitches, which are produced from decanted oil, may be a safer and less expensive alternative. The decanted oil is a heavy fraction obtained from catalytic cracking of petroleum. The difficulties in controlling its processing are derived from its complex composition, which includes paraffins, aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds. The present work investigates the analysis by NMR-DOSY of a mixture of model compounds present in decanted oil. Thus, a mixture of Tetracosane, Phenanthrene, 9-Mehylanthracene, Pyrene, Carbazole, 9-metil Carbazol, Dibenzothiophene, Dibenzofuran, Hexadecane, 1-Methylnaphthalene, Thiophene, Tetrahydrofuran was analyzed by NMR with an Avance III 500 MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a BBO probe with a gradient on z-axis, at 20?C. To help in the separation by diffusion, the following polymers were used: poly-(ethyleneglycol), poly-(vinylpyrrolidone), poly-(dimethylsiloxan), poly-(butylmethacrylate) e poly-(vinylacetate).The shift reagent Eu(fod)3 was also employed. The results from DOSY-INEPT experiments show that poly-(butylmethacrylate) is the matrix which afforded the best separation of the different components of the mixture, followed by poly-(vinylacetate), poly-(ethyleneglycol) and finally, poly-(vinylpyrrolidone), which showed satisfactory results / Um grande desafio, muitas das vezes at? comum nos laborat?rios, ? a an?lise de misturas. Os m?todos convencionais em sua maioria exigem um tratamento pr?vio das misturas, o que demanda tempo, al?m de interferir diretamente no equil?brio do sistema. Hoje em dia, a t?cnica de Resson?ncia Magn?tica Nuclear pode ser usada na an?lise de misturas medindo-se o coeficiente de difus?o dos componentes da mistura, permitindo a obten??o dos espectros de cada componente individualmente por meio de um experimento r?pido que n?o interfere na mistura em si. O experimento mais comum ? o DOSY, do ingl?s Espectroscopia de Difus?o Ordenada. Piches, em geral, s?o produtos que s?o empregados como mat?rias-primas na produ??o de uma variedade de materiais de carbono, tais como: anodos de carbono para produ??o de alum?nio, eletrodos de grafite para a ind?stria sider?rgia e fibras de carbono. Piches obtidos a partir do alcatr?o da hulha, res?duo da produ??o de coque metal?rgico, s?o os tradicionalmente mais usados, mas apresentam alto potencial carcinog?nico e tem demanda decrescente em fun??o de novas tecnologias empregadas nas coquerias. Piches de petr?leo, produzidos a partir de ?leos decantados, podem potencialmente constituir uma alternativa mais segura e com maior disponibilidade. O ?leo decantado ? uma fra??o pesada obtida nas unidades de craqueamento catal?tico fluido no refino de petr?leo, e o controle de seu processamento ? dificultado pela complexidade de sua composi??o, que inclui compostos paraf?nicos, homoarom?ticos e heteroarom?ticos. O presente trabalho se prop?em a investigar a an?lise por RMN de uma mistura de padr?es de subst?ncias representativas dos tipos de compostos presentes no ?leo decantado. Assim, foram escolhidos padr?es de Tetracosano, Fenantreno, 9-metil Antraceno, Pireno, Carbazol, 9-metil Carbazol, Dibenzotiofeno, Dibenzofurano, Hexadecano, 1-metil Naftaleno, Tiofeno, Tetrahidrofurano. Todos os experimentos foram realizados no laborat?rio de RMN do PPGQ-UFRRJ a 20?C com o espectr?metro de RMN de 500 MHz Bruker Avance III, equipado com sonda BBO, gradiente no eixo z. Para auxiliar na separa??o dos componentes da mistura foram usados o pol?mero poli-(etilenoglicol), poli-(vinilpirrolidona), poli-(dimetilsiloxano), poli-(metacrilato de butila) e poli-(acetato de vinila), al?m do reagente de deslocamento Eu(fod)3. Os resultados obtidos a partir dos experimentos de DOSY-INEPT mostraram que o pol?mero PMAB foi a matriz que mais auxiliou na separa??o dos componentes da mistura em quest?o no presente trabalho, sendo seguido pelas matrizes PAV, PEG e PVP, que tamb?m apresentaram resultados satisfat?rios

The quest for a complete understanding of mixtures is a challenge which has stimulated the development of several techniques. One of the most powerful NMR-based techniques is known as Diffusion-Ordered SpectroscopY (DOSY), in which it is possible to distinguish the NMR spectra of chemical species with different hydrodynamic radii, i.e. with different self-diffusion coefficients. It allows the study of intact mixtures, providing information on the interactions within the mixture and saving time and money compared to other techniques. Unfortunately, DOSY is not very effective when signals overlap and/or the diffusion coefficients are very similar. This drawback has led to the development of new methods to overcome this problem. The present investigation is focused on developing some of these. Most DOSY datasets show multiplet phase distortions caused by J-modulation. These distortions not only hinder the interpretation of spectra, but also increase the overlap between signals. The addition of a 45º purging pulse immediately before the onset of acquisition is proposed as a way to remove the unwanted distortions. Most DOSY experiments use 1H detection, because of the higher sensitivity which is generally achieved. However, acquiring spectra with other nuclei such as 13C can reduce overlap problems. Two new sequences have been developed to maximize the sensitivity of heteronuclear DOSY experiments. In order to increase resolving power, it is also possible to incorporate another variable into diffusion experiments as a further dimension. If this results in an approximately trilinear dataset (each dimension varying independently), it is possible to extract physically meaningful information for each component using multivariate statistical methods. This is explored for the cases where the new variable is either the relaxation behaviour or the concentration variation (which can be measured during a reaction or in a set of samples with different concentrations for each component). PARAllel FACtor (PARAFAC) analysis can obtain the spectra, diffusional decay and relaxation evolution or kinetics for each of the components. In a completely different approach, the separation power of liquid chromatography has been combined in a novel way with the NMR potential for elucidating structures. NMR has been used previously as a precise way to measure average flow velocities, even in porous media. Using this capability to detect the different average velocities of solutes that occur in chromatographic columns ought to provide a new way of analysing mixtures with the same potential as LC-NMR, but faster and more simple. In such a flow system, a chromatographic column is introduced into the NMR probe and a 2D dataset is acquired and Fourier transformed to obtain the velocity distribution for each of the detected NMR signals.

Developments in Multivariate DOSY processing and Pure Shift NMR, authored by Adam Colbourne and submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Manchester, 26th February 2014. The theme of this thesis is resolution; the separation of overlapping, entangled information in NMR spectroscopy data. The ability to resolve the features of a dataset is important because it greatly simplifies, or even makes possible, the interpretation of those features to yield information. Here, methods developed to increase resolving power in two different areas of NMR spectroscopy are described; these areas are so-called 'pure shift' or δ-resolved NMR and diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY). Pure shift NMR aims to reduce the overlap of the signals present in an NMR spectrum by collapsing the multiplet structure caused by spin-spin coupling. There are a variety of methods for achieving this, each of which has its pros and cons. A homo-nuclear decoupling scheme originated by K. Zangger and H. Sterk is implemented in its most recent form to decouple the F1 and F2 dimensions of the 2D NOESY experiment individually. The application of covariance processing to allow the removal of all the multiplet structure from data produced by these singly decoupled experiments is demonstrated and the results discussed. Full experimental homo-nuclear decoupling of 2D NMR is discussed and demonstrated with the TOCSY experiment using a combination of Bax's constant time decoupling scheme in F1 and Zangger-Sterk decoupling in F2. DOSY is strictly a catch-all term for the data processing applied to pulsed field gradient NMR data to extract information on the diffusion of chemical species, but is widely accepted as referring to the combination of the two. Applied to mixtures, DOSY is a powerful tool that can allow the separation of the spectra of the mixture components; this greatly simplifies the process of interpreting mixture NMR data. However, DOSY processing struggles where signals from different, but similarly diffusing chemical species overlap; one is faced with the problem of separating similar, overlapping exponentials in noisy data. Standard DOSY processing schemes can be described as univariate or multivariate with respect to the way in which they handle DOSY data; the former analyses the data a single frequency at a time, the latter tries to untangle the whole dataset at once. Multivariate processing schemes are better suited to resolving overlap in DOSY data, because they use all of the information available, the counter point being that too much information causes them to break down. SCORE is one such algorithm. Research into constraining and augmenting SCORE is presented, leading into a discussion of the potential application of prior knowledge of the DOSY dataset. While exploring the application of prior knowledge, it was realised that the differences between the spectra extracted by SCORE could be used to separate mixture components in a general manner. The presented OUTSCORE algorithm uses information from both the spectra and diffusion dimensions of DOSY data to separate components almost an order of magnitude more similarly diffusing than was previously possible. Finally, a hybrid processing scheme termed LOCODOSY is reported, that breaks a dataset down into smaller sections for individual multivariate analysis before recombination of the results; circumventing the problem of having too much or too little data in any one analysis. The LOCODOSY processing scheme is demonstrated on both the SCORE and OUTSCORE algorithms.

This thesis discusses progress made towards assembling molecular building blocks in the presence of our molecular host of choice, cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8]). Our studies on the self-assembly of synthetic and biological components in water bridge overlapping conceptsand techniques drawn from the fields of synthetic organic chemistry, supramolecular self-assembly, and applied NMR techniques. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to chemical complexity, and how supramolecular chemistshave advanced in their capability of assembling more complex molecular architectures. The discussion focusses particularly on self-assembly carried out in the aqueousphase, and how, like in biology, molecular design of the building blocks become criticalin enabling non-covalent assembly to occur in this dynamic, and relatively competitiveenvironment. The cucurbit[n]uril family of molecular hosts are then introduced with anoverview of their modes of binding, and affinities towards typical guests. Finally, a practicalintroduction to NMR methods gaining prominence in supramolecular chemistry ispresented. In particular, the use of diffusion NMR, a key tool for probing the solutiondynamics of molecular assemblies, is highlighted. Chapter 2 details work carried out on the CB[8]-mediated self-assembly of supramolecularblock copolymers from polymeric, and small molecule building blocks. Here, endgroup-functionalised polymer guests were shown to assemble with small molecule ditopicguests in the presence of CB[8] to form block copolymers. Copolymers of various molecularweights were assembled, and the supramolecular complexes were studied usingsolution viscometry and diffusion NMR. This study represented the first use of diffusionNMR for probing the assembly of polymeric guests with CB[8].Chapter 3 describes the self-assembly of CB[8] with complementary ditopic guests. Highmolecular weight supramolecular polymers are known to form through the step-growthassembly of complementary ditopic building blocks. Here we sought to probe CB[8]?sability to drive supramolecular polymerisation. Solution viscometry, ESI-MS, and diffusionNMR were used to investigate the self-assembly process, which indicated that cyclicoligomers had formed. The relatively low solubility of CB[8] in water was thought to bea major limitation to polymer formation in this instance. Important observations relating to the effect of salts on the solution viscosities and stabilitiesof the complexes, are also discussed. Chapter 4 places emphasis on the synthetic methods employed towards preparing multivalentguests for CB[8] binding studies. Our synthetic guests were based on watersolubleoligomers of ethylene glycol. A bidirectional elongation route is presented foraccessing higher molecular weight, and monodisperse ethylene glycol oligomers (n = 12)in suitable purity. Chapter 5 describes the assembly of protein-polymer conjugates, and the versatility ofdiffusion NMR as a means to probe the assembly process. Here, end group-functionalisedpoly(ethylene glycol) guests were appended to bovine serum albumin (BSA) through amixed chemical ligation-self assembly protocol. The NMR studies conducted are emphasisedhere, which served to complement other characterisation methods used thatare reported elsewhere. Chapter 6 discusses ongoing work on lipid-based guests, and the resulting liposome assembliesformed. Head group-functionalised phospholipid guests, and cholesterol-basedguests were synthesised. Phospholipid guests were obtained through an enzymatic route,a novelty in our group. Dye-encapsulated liposomes were then assembled, purified, andcharacterised by fluorescence microscopy. Finally, we sought to optimise lipid formulationsto enhance liposome stability, towards conducting molecular recognition studies inthe presence of CB[8].Chapter 7 then closes the thesis with concluding remarks that summarise the describedresearch, while highlighting points of note.

Convergent and divergent strategies for the synthesis of viologen dendrimers with 1,3,5-tri-methylene branching units are presented. The synthesis of 3,5-bis(hydroxymethyl) benzyl bromide was optimized. The analysis of the crystal structure of 1-[3,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)benzyl]-4-(pyridin-4-yl) pyridinium hexafluorophosphate together with PM3 calculations opens an avenue to judge the structure and conformation of benzylic viologen dendrimers. In order to study chemical trigger induced conformational changes, viologen dendrimers were spin-labeled via a divergent approach. 1-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)-4-(pyridin-4-yl)pyridinium hexafluorophosphate was used as the end group to yield an activated dendrimer of the respective generation. The corresponding dendrimers were spin-labeled by reacting the active functionality with 4-amino TEMPO. The products were characterized by ESR (spin-label efficiency) and conventional cyclic voltammetry. Dynamic ESR studies are planned. New trimethylene-dipyridinium dendrimers were synthesized via a divergent approach using 4-tert-butylbenzyl group as the peripheral group. These dendrimers are well soluble in DMF or DMSO as PF6 salts and they act as a host for anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonate (AQDS). They can be stoichiometrically titrated with AQDS as shown by 1H-NMR, DOSY and cyclic voltammetry. Upon loading them with AQDS, the dendrimers undergo first a contraction, they reach a minimum hydrodynamic radius for complete charge compensation and they re-open when overcharging takes place. The contraction is supported by MM+ calculations. Upon stepwise loading of G2 (42 positive charges) with AQDS (2 negative charges), the first 3 molar equivalents (6 neg. charges) occupy the innermost dendrimer shell (consisting of 6 pos. charges), the next 6 equivalents (12 neg. charges) occupy the middle shell (12 pos. charges) and the last 12 equivalents AQDS (24 neg. charges) occupy the outermost shell of the dendrimer (24 pos. charges), as supported by 1H-NMR titrations yielding the magic equivalent numbers of 3, 9=3+6, and 21=3+6+12. Such stepwise radial complexations again in DMSO were further demonstrated using other molecular guests (mono-, di- and trianionic) as well as with on purpose synthesized viologen dendrimers. α,ω-dibromoalkanes were bifunctionalized in two steps to yield alkyl phosphonates with pyridinium, trimethylenedipyridinium, bipyridinium or a sulfonate at their ω end. These compounds were used as surface modifiers to build biomimetic membranes on the pore walls of mesoporous TiO2. Host-guest interaction studies with on purpose synthesized viologen compounds have been performed in collaboration.

Yes / Diffusion ordered 1H-NMR spectroscopy (DOSY) is a useful, non-destructive technique for analysing polymer hydrodynamic size and intrinsic/solution viscosity. However, to date there has been no investigation of DOSY under variable temperature conditions that allow trends in polymer conformation to be determined. Poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (P(EtOx)) is a hydrophilic polymer that has the potential to replace poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) in biomedical applications. Applying DOSY to a series of narrow-distribution P(EtOx) revealed that the apparent hydrodynamic radii scaled with molecular weight as expected. By altering the temperature of the solution the trends in Flory-type exponents were determined, enabling the determination of the power laws related to the coil-globule conformation of linear polymers directly from NMR data. These measurements were complicated by the onset of convection currents at higher temperatures, which impose a limit to the effective measurement range of ca. 10–35 °C. It was revealed that P(EtOx) had a more expanded random coil conformation than PEG, and it trended towards θ conditions at the lower critical solution temperature. In comparison, PEG was approximately in θ-conditions at room-temperature. This shows the use, and limitations of DOSY in polymer conformation analysis, and applies it to P(EtOx), a polymer which has not been analysed in this manner before. / University of Ghent (Grant Number: RM1602-1695)