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The new frontier in foodomics: the perspective of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Posted: 26 April 2013 | Francesco Capozzi, Foodomics Laboratory, Department of Agro-Food Science and Technology, University of Bologna | 1 comment

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an investigation technique to study matter. It is based on the properties of magnetically active nuclei, which respond to a perturbation induced in a sample by applying a radio wave pulse. The nuclei, if immersed in an intense magnetic field, respond to the pulse by oscillating at a particular frequency, thus generating a signal which is recorded and transformed by the instrument as a graph, the so-called spectrum, reporting the intensity of the response as a function of the oscillation frequency. The frequency of each nucleus is characteristic of its position in the molecule and depends on the physico-chemical state of the substances. The response depends, in fact, not only on the structure of the molecule to which the atom belongs to, but also on the chemical environment in which the molecule is immersed.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an investigation technique to study matter. It is based on the properties of magnetically active nuclei, which respond to a perturbation induced in a sample by applying a radio wave pulse. The nuclei, if immersed in an intense magnetic field, respond to the pulse by oscillating at a particular frequency, thus generating a signal which is recorded and transformed by the instrument as a graph, the so-called spectrum, reporting the intensity of the response as a function of the oscillation frequency. The frequency of each nucleus is characteristic of its position in the molecule and depends on the physico-chemical state of the substances. The response depends, in fact, not only on the structure of the molecule to which the atom belongs to, but also on the chemical environment in which the molecule is immersed.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an investigation technique to study matter. It is based on the properties of magnetically active nuclei, which respond to a perturbation induced in a sample by applying a radio wave pulse. The nuclei, if immersed in an intense magnetic field, respond to the pulse by oscillating at a particular frequency, thus generating a signal which is recorded and transformed by the instrument as a graph, the so-called spectrum, reporting the intensity of the response as a function of the oscillation frequency. The frequency of each nucleus is characteristic of its position in the molecule and depends on the physico-chemical state of the substances. The response depends, in fact, not only on the structure of the molecule to which the atom belongs to, but also on the chemical environment in which the molecule is immersed.

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