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ERIC Number: EJ1486934
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Oct
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: EISSN-1938-1328
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Quantifying the Association of Caffeine Using NMR Spectroscopy in the Chemistry Laboratory
Renuka Baral1; Jackson V. Gunn1; C. Scott Hartley1
Journal of Chemical Education, v102 n10 p4611-4615 2025
The self-association of caffeine in solution, driven by the hydrophobic effect, is a simple example of molecular aggregation. It obeys an isodesmic association model in which each successive binding occurs with the same equilibrium constant. Here, we describe an activity for chemistry students that explores this phenomenon using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. By analyzing concentration-dependent chemical shift changes in the [superscript 1]H NMR spectra of caffeine dissolved in D[subscript 2]O, students are introduced to uses of NMR spectroscopy beyond structure elucidation. They gain hands-on experience in quantifying supramolecular equilibria and consider their results in the context of molecular-level interactions.
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, United States