Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Flying J Selects On-Line NMR Technology from NMR Process Systems LLC for Clean Fuels Production and Expansion Program at Bakersfield Refinery

Press Release - NMR Process Systems - Danbury CT - January 19, 2007

As part of its announced multi-million dollar refinery improvement prog ram , Big West of California, LLC has selected NMR Process Systems LLC (NPS) to provide on-line NMR technology. The NPS integrated sampling and NMR analyzer system will enable the refinery to both increase its diesel production, as well as achieve quality targets needed for the new Clean Fuels Flying J will produce at it’s Bakersfield, CA, refinery. NPS’s NMR technology solutions, coupled with a Swagelok® sampling system, will perform simultaneous, multi-property diesel measurements required for process monitoring and control in the manufacturing of these new fuels. Installation is scheduled for the first quarter of 2007.

NMR Process Systems LLC, of Danbury, Connecticut (www.nmr-automation.com) is a process analytical technology and engineering services company, providing process analytical solutions to maximize plant and manufacturing operations in the refining, petrochemical, pharmaceutical and food industries. Solon, Ohio based Swagelok Company (www.swagelok.com) designs, manufactures, and delivers an expanding range of high-quality fluid system products and solutions.

Contact:
Paul J. Giammatteo
Product and Marketing Manager
NMR Process Systems, LLC
87A Sand Pit Road
Danbury, Connecticut 06810
Tel: +1-203-744-5905
paul@nmr-automation.com
www.nmr-automation.com

International Humic Substances Society

International Humic Substances Society – details on standard humic and fulvic acid isolation methods – standard materials – NMR reference data on standard materials.

NMR Meetings and Society Links

A few society websites to keep an eye out for meetings as well as a few meeting links that I have come across recently.

International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

Clinical Magnetic Resonance Society

European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology

Japanese Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Magnetic Resonance Managers Society

RSC NMR Discussion Group

Finnish NMR Discussion Group

Spanish Magnetic Resonance Society

Austrian NMR Discussion Group

Australian and New Zealand Society for Magnetic Resonance

German Magnetic Resonance Discussion Group

Italian Magnetic Resonance Discussion Group

49th Rocky Mountain Conference on Analytical Chemistry – July 22-26, 2007 – Beaver Run Resort, Breckenridge, Colorado

Society for Applied Spectroscopy
5th Alpine Conference on Solid-State NMR11th Brazilian NMR User Meeting / Workshop: NMR in
South America – May 7-11, Rio de Janeiro State, BrazilFor information please contact Sonia Cabral de Menezes

45th Annual Meeting of The NMR Society of Japan Nov. 22-24, Kyoto, Japan

MRS Symposium “Magnetic Resonance in Material Science” Nov. 27 – Dec. 1, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

For further NMR meeting info visit http://www.process-nmr.com/meetings_and_events%202006.htm

September 27, 2006

Interactive NMR Frequency Map With IUPAC NMR Data

A very useful NMR frequency/receptivity map from Alexej Jerschow at New York UniversityInteractive Map and Table

Excellent Article on “Mobilizing Magnetic Resonance” from Physics World

An excellent view on the latest new technologies appearing on the scene of mobile magnetic resonance. Though the review is fairly thorough in the “new technologies”, it does not mention the mobile permanent magnet based spectrometers currently availbale from Process NMR Associates. I don’t know why traditional mobile NMR instrumentation is repeatedly ignored in this arena. The perception is out there that NMR will always be expensive to buy, maintain and operate. The truth of the matter is that high-resolution NMR instrumentation should cost less than $100K and low field relaxometers should cost below $30K. Automation is possible for all aspects of NMR operation from locking, shimming, pulse sequence calibration, gain settings, and post processing procedures. I’d love to hear comment from people on this as I’ve been scratching my head for years as to why people aren’t interested in low field spectrometers anymore for undergraduate and industrial applications.

September 25, 2006

NMR of Earwax

Yet another masterpiece from tenderbutton – NMR of earwax.

September 19, 2006

EUROMAR 2007 - Magnetic Resonance Conference

The EUROMAR 2007 magnetic resonance conference will be held in Tarragona, Spain, July 1-6 at the Tarragona Trade-Fair and Congress Centre. Satellite meetings will be held on July 6.

September 15, 2006

SMASH Conference 2006: Multi-Sample MAS Probe

I was at the SMASH conference in Burlington Vermont earlier this week and the presentation of the week in my opinion was the multi-sample MAS probe poster by Nelson et al. This is a probe based on a patent (6,937,020) filed by Professor Eric Munson’s NMR group at the University of Kansas, and built by David Lewis of Revolution NMR. The concept involves stacking multiple MAS rotor housings in the probe head and then shuttling them into the central sweet spot of the magnet for acquisition via a pneumatic device attached at the base of the probe. The RF is switched between independent RF inputs and each housing has an independent tune/match capability. The idea is to increase throughput by allowing extra acquisitions to be obtained on other samples during the relaxation delays of the independent experiments.An excellent video demonstration is available on the webpage dedicated to the probe, as well as references to the patent and the journal article covering the development (“Multiple-sample probe for solid-state NMR studies of pharmaceuticals”, Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance 29 (2006), 204 – 213). Commercial release is expected in 2007.

July 28, 2006

New CAPP NMR Method - Olefin Content of Crude Oils, Condensates, and Diluents by 1H NMR

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has produced a test method to quantify olefins in crude oils, condenates and diluents. The method is particularly aimed at heavy oils and bitumens and their products that are not amenable to traditional olefin analysis. The method is published at the following link. We have developed many methods similar to this and have the ability to quantify and speciate the olefins present in the sample. The current CAPP method developed by the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association (CCQTP) can be used to obtain total olefin content. Further NMR analysis and a few other experiments would allow some more detailed olefin chemistry distributions to be determined as well as observe the presence of conjugated diolefins that would be particularly troublesome in the processing of these materials. 1H NMR spectroscopy can be used very effectively to obtain many chemical and physical properties of crudes, heavy crudes, bitumen, and the distillate products that are produced by these materials. 1H NMR spectral correlation with these properties by PLS or non-linear PLS regression can yield extremely robust models, and for the chemical properties much more detailed chemical structure information can be obtained fro combining 13C NMR data with 1H NMR results.

CCQTP is an association with members that span multiple segments of the Canadian oil industry -it’s history, mission, and membership can be found at the site.

On a related note an excellent technical site dealing with crude oil quality issues cane be found at the Crude Oil Quality Group website, which is a consortium with the following membership, dedicated to developing test methods and quality standards for crude oil trading that go well beyond the traditional gravity and sulfur measurements currently used. There are many additives, processing fluids, corrosive materials that can be found in crude oils that can cause processing issues for the buyer who purchases simply based on density and sulfur. The group has made public much of it’s meeting agenda archives and the presentations given at those meetings. It is an interesting read for those interested in petroleum chemistry issues.

At PNA we have been developing some high field and low field NMR techniques, looking at chemistry and relaxation in crude oils with naphthenic acid and corrosion issues. We would be interested in hearing from anyone interested in woprking with us to develop a relatively straight forward method for NAN and TAN analysis by NMR methods.

Quantitative NMR

Found and interesting site touting quantitative NMR as a new concept….seems strange as 99% of the NMR work I have done is considered quantitative. There is a perception out there that 13C NMR is always qualitative. This has been confirmed to me in conversations with organic chemistry professors who will perform quantitative 1H NMR all day long and even justify higher magnetic field instruments based on lack of resolution in 1H data as they have the perception that 13C is purely qualitative and don’t think of the superior resolution and chemical shift information present in 13C spectra. The website is at qnmr.com, and contains an excellent petroleum chemistry example of the development of quantitative 13C NMR for aromaticity determination by Joe Ray, ex Amoco NMR researcher. There is also an excellent link to a paper on the quantitative NMR of natural products.

Excellent Solid-State NMR Overview at Durham University

There is an excellent overview of solid-state NMR at my alma mater Durham Univeristy in the UK. The page can be found at the following link.

July 21, 2006

What a day! Took my NMR home with me at the end of the day !

Yesterday started typically, ran a few 1H NMR for some customers, developed a low-field NMR method for diesel and kerosene hydrogen content correlated to aromaticity, try to run some fibers for moisture and spin-finish. Suddenly 5:30 loomed, the Mrs called to ask when I’d home for dinner ….. so rather than incur the wrath of the spouse by continuing late with the work, I simply picked up my NMR and went home with it. The new SpinTrack 20 MHz system is essentially a desktop computer sized console with a 6×6×6 inch magnet weighing 14 lbs. The whole shabang runs off a USB connection to my laptop. Thus …. I spent today completing the work from the comfort of my home office … Beautiful ! Tomorrow I might just carry the system upstairs, put it on the coffe table and acquire some more data while watching the Tour de France on TV. Not many people can say they take their NMR machines home with them at night. This could become a regular thing for me.

July 19, 2006

Interesting News on High Temperature Superconductor Systems

Surfing the web I came across a surprising announcement … it appears that Progression Systems is interested in developing a 80 MHz high temperature superconductor electromagent system to utilize in their process NMR business. Does this mean that Progression will be entering the high resolution NMR domain or raising the resonance frequency and sensitivity of nuclei other than proton (27Al, 23Na, 31P, etc.)? Below is the news bulletin from Industrial Research Ltd (News Bulletin found at: http://www.irl.cri.nz/newsandevents/Mediareleases/joint-venture-for-hts110.aspx).

Joint venture for HTS-110A new joint venture between HTS-110 and US company Progression Inc will provide customers with a unique high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet capability.1 May 2006HTS-110 Limited, an affiliated company of Industrial Research, focuses on HTS solutions for medical, scientific, energy, defence, transport and industrial markets. Progression is a world leader in the development and implementation of process Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technologies, Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) techniques, and Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) analysers for the mining, petrochemical, and polymer/polyolefin industries.

The new venture, Progression-HTS-110, will provide customers with unique high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet capability. The new series of analyser will operate at 80MHz with the field strength of 2 Tesla generated by a HTS magnet.

Target markets for the analyser will include refining applications in the oil and gas industry, educational research and development, pharmaceutical and biochemistry applications.

Chief executive of Progression, Vaughn E. Davis, says the company is looking forward to working with HTS-110 Ltd and describes the deal as the perfect complementary vehicle to extend and build on the unique strengths of Progression’s leading market position in process NMR.

Chief executive of HTS-110, Dr Sohail Choudhry, says it is a strategic move to partner with Progression and extend HTS-110’s leading-edge technology into new markets.

“HTS is an advanced and rapidly developing new technology and we look forward to using that as a key driver for expanding the marketplace with Progression.

“Progression is an innovative company and we share a similar culture – that will work to our advantage and allow us to benefit from both our unique and complementary skills.”

It is anticipated the new company will be headquartered in Houston, Texas, under the leadership of Mr. Scott Simmons.

HTS-110 is a subsidiary company of Industrial Research Ltd – it’s HTS magnet technologies are described here.

Process NMR Technology Session Planned for Eastern Analytical Conference 2007

Press Release - NMR Process Systems - Danbury CT - February 14, 2007

Dr Edwards of Process NMR Associates has been asked to organize a session on Process NMR Technology at the Eastern Analytical Conference to be held at the Garden State Exhibit Center, November 12-15, 2007. Below is a copy of the Call for Papers sent out on February 14, 2007.

Hello to all,

I have been asked by Cecil Dybowski to chair a session on Process NMR Technology at the 2007 Eastern Analytical Symposium to be held November 12-15 at the New Jersey Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset New Jersey. At this point I am putting out some feelers to gauge the level of interest that is out there amongst NMR practitioners in this field. I would like the session(s) to encompass both high resolution and time-domain applications of NMR in process control applications and at-line in manufacturing facilities in all industry sectors. The work can be actual on-line examples or laboratory based analysis being used to justify or prove applications before they are spun out to the plant. Developments in hardware, software and chemometrics would also be of general interest and to this end hardware talks on magnet and NMR-sensor development and their potential application would be encouraged. Fully automated NMR analysis in the laboratory that simply requires a technician to load the samples would also be considered as a valid topic.

The abstract deadline for EAS is April 15th. If you are interested in presenting a paper I would appreciate hearing from you by e-mail. Once I know how much interest is out there I will begin pulling the details together and have the speakers submit abstracts through the EAS website. For your information the EAS is the premier analytical meeting for the U.S. East coast and it has a website at http://www.eas.org. Also, as an introduction to the symposium itself, I am providing a link to the program chairs letter - http://www.eas.org/symposium/symposium.html

The distribution I have included in this e-mail are of persons and organizations that I know are working in this field. If you have any colleagues, customers, or acquaintances who you feel could provide a good presentation on their research or applications please feel free to forward this e-mail on to them, or inform me of their e-mail address and I will contact them.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope that you will join us in New Jersey,

Best Regards,

John

Contact : John Edwards, (203) 744-5905 E-Mail: john@process-nmr.com