NMR for polymorphism

Polymorphism – i.e. the ability of a chemical compound to crystallize in different forms – is a phenomenon ubiquitous in organic solids, but still poorly understood. Because different polymorphs of the same chemical compound have radically different physicochemical properties, polymorphism can have enormous economic and practical consequences for many industrial applications (e.g. in pharmacy). One of the major experimental challenges consists in finding structure-property relashionships. However, accessing the atomic-level structure of polymorphs is complicated when crystallites are small (sub μm), as it happens for powdered samples.

To meet these challenges, our team works on the development of new experimental approaches in NMR crystallography, which, combined with computational methods, gives access to the atomic-level structure of powdered organic solids. Specifically, we develop new experimental tools based on solid-state NMR coupled with Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP), which  increases the NMR sensitivity of several orders of magnitude.

This project is supported by:

• ERC (STRUCTURE project, PI: Giulia Mollica)
• ANR (SHARP project, PI: Pierre Thureau)
• CNRS (International Emerging Actions, PI: Pierre Thureau).