Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy—a technique that identifies chemicals by their atomic signatures—is getting a portable, thousand-fold sensitivity boost that could take it out of the lab and into factories, fields, and crime scenes. Standard NMR machines are the size of a car, cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and require dedicated facilities. This confines their use to specialist laboratories, even though the technique could solve real-world problems like checking fuel quality on a refinery floor, detecting pollutants in a river, or verifying pharmaceuticals at a loading bay. The core problem is that miniaturising NMR destroys its sensitivity. The HyperSoL project solves this by amplifying the NMR signal from hydrogen and carbon atoms by more than 1000 times using a new hyperpolarisation method. This lets portable devices distinguish chemicals as precisely as their lab-bound counterparts. The team will build both commercial and custom prototypes that stay small enough to carry. If successful, portable NMR could transform manufacturing quality control, environmental field testing, and forensic analysis—anywhere that needs fast, non-destructive chemical identification without shipping samples to a central lab. The research is applied, not fundamental, and targets specific industrial and regulatory bottlenecks.
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In science, access to new data drives innovation. Disruptive technologies transform research by providing quantitative information in a simple and cost-effective way. Consider, for example, the impact of gene sequencing technology on applications from human health to forensics. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful technique that has revolutionised the physical and biological sciences. However, standard NMR spectrometers are large and expensive, meaning they are confined to dedicated technical facilities. The potential to generate a step change in NMR exists if the detector could be taken out of the lab and brought to the sample. The challenge is to achieve this without sacrificing the sensitivity and chemical resolving power of laboratory NMR. The unique innovation of the Hyperpolarised NMR Solutions beyond the Laboratory (HyperSoL) project is a new method to amplify the NMR response of hydrogen and carbon by factors of >1000-fold. By accessing chemical information about carbon as well as hydrogen, this method will enhance both the sensitivity and chemical discrimination of portable NMR devices. The HyperSoL project will develop two approaches based on both commercial and bespoke NMR instrumentation. These methods will maintain instrument portability, while amplifying sensitivity and chemical resolution for quantifying analytes at natural isotopic abundance. Harnessing this new portable NMR technology will liberate NMR from the laboratory, transforming the way that it is used in such disparate areas as manufacturing, environmental monitoring, forensics and field testing. The fundamental advances that are required to successfully realise this vision can be uniquely delivered by the PI, who has an international track record in advancing NMR development through fundamental nuclear spin research. This grant would provide the PI with the necessary resources to consolidate her position as a world-leader in portable NMR technology development.
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