Important to use deuterated buffers in small molecule NMR

One way to make your life massively easier if you are doing NMR of small molecules, especially at low concentrations (sub-1mM), is to simply work out what buffer you’d like to use and then order all of the components in deuterated form ahead of time.

For example, if you would like to study your molecule in a buffer like HEPES with 5% DMSO, you can order fully-deuterated HEPES and DMSO from companies like CIL and Sigma-ISOTEC.  Although expensive, the time it can save you at the spectrometer and the enhanced quality of the data are likely worthwhile tradeoffs.

You can also go a step further and prepare your buffers in 100% D2O, making water suppression vastly easier and improving the quality of your spectra. These steps work together in a synergistic manner to dramatically improve your data quality when acquiring on small molecules at low concentrations.

Saving current shims for an automation run

Here is an important tip if you are setting up an automation run using Bruker’s ICON-NMR software.  Before the run, lock and shim on your first sample.  Once you have a very good shim, write your shim settings (‘wsh’) to a new shimset called “automation.”  If you specify the “automation” shimset in the gradshim menu as the one to be used by ICON,  it will use this shimset as a starting point for automated shimming before each sample rather than a default shim.