Real-time separation of natural products by ultrafast 2D NMR coupled to on-line HPLC

Hyphenated HPLC-NMR is an extremely efficient analytical tool, which makes it possible to perform on-flow experiments where 1D NMR spectra are obtained in real time as the analytes are separated and eluted from the chromatographic column. However, it is incompatible with multidimensional NMR methods that form an indispensible tool for the study of complex mixtures. Recently, Frydman and co-workers have proposed an ultrafast 2D NMR approach, where a complete 2D NMR correlation can be recorded in a single scan, thus providing a solution to the irreversibility of hyphenated techniques. This paper presents the first implementation of on-line ultrafast HPLC-NMR. Ultrafast COSY spectra are acquired every 12 s in the course of a chromatographic run performed on a mixture of natural aromatic compounds. The results, obtained on a commercial HPLC-NMR setup, highlight the generality of the ultrafast HPLC-NMR methodology, thus opening the way to a number of applications in the numerous fields in which HPLC-NMR forms a routine analytical tool.