Detecting intermolecular NOEs by means of a novel DPFGSE pulse sequence. Application to the solvation of carbohydrates in binary mixtures.

We present a pulse sequence based on solute-to-solvent NOE enhancement and aimed at the detection of intermolecular NOE's. Thus, a W3 pulse cluster is used to selectively filter the solvent signals in a DPFGSE sequence. The sequence has been tested on a sample of glucose dissolved in two binary aqueous mixtures (water-acetonitrile and water-DMSO). We show how the resulting enhancements may derive from intermolecular cross-relaxation or, in the water-DMSO sample, also from chemical exchange. In each case, a quantitative interpretation of the data is also supplied, both in terms of local enrichment in one specific solvent (preferential solvation), and by means of a kinetic model for a two-site chemical exchange.