Solvent suppression explained

Solvent suppression is any technique in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to decrease undesired signal from a sample's solvent.^[1]

Introduction

In liquid-state NMR spectroscopy, the sample to be studied is dissolved in a solvent. Typically, the concentration of the solvent is much higher than the concentration of the solutes of interest. The signal from the solvent can overwhelm that of the solute, and the NMR instrument may not collect any meaningful data. Solvent suppression techniques are particularly important in protein NMR where the solvent often includes H₂O as well as D₂O.^[2]

Notes and References

1. Gonen. O.. Johnson. G.. Solvent Suppression by Selective Signal Subtraction, a Time-Domain Negative-Feedback Dynamic-Range-Compression Method for Proton NMR Spectroscopy. Journal of Magnetic Resonance, Series B. August 1993. 102. 1. 98–102. 10.1006/jmrb.1993.1068. 1993JMRB..102...98G.
2. Web site: Solvent suppression in 1D proton NMR. 17 January 2015.