Phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance

Phosphorus is commonly found in organic compounds and coordination complexes (as phosphines), making it useful to measure 31- NMR spectra routinely.

Solution 31P-NMR is one of the more routine NMR techniques because 31P has an isotopic abundance of 100% and a relatively high gyromagnetic ratio.

31P-NMR spectroscopy is useful to assay purity and to assign structures of phosphorus-containing compounds because these signals are well resolved and often occur at characteristic frequencies.

The paramagnetic shielding tensor, σp, includes terms that describe the radial expansion (related to charge), energies of excited states, and bond overlap.

In addition, a specific N-H...(O)-P experiment (INEPT transfer using three-bond scalar coupling 3JN-P~5 Hz) could provide a direct information about formation of hydrogen bonds between amine protons of protein to phosphate of lipid headgroups, which is useful in studies of protein/membrane interactions.