spin-lattice relaxation in cobalt-containing aluminophosphate molecular sieves

Phosphorus spin-lattice relaxation was studied in aluminophosphate molecular sieves containing various concentrations of either framework or non-framework cobalt. The behaviour of nuclear magnetisation in the presence of these paramagnetic centres was described successfully in the limit of no spin-diffusion. The diffusionless regime was strongly indicated with non-exponential magnetisation recovery and was therefore easy to recognise. According to the model, spin-lattice relaxation rates depend on the square of cobalt concentration. Measured relaxation rates agreed well with calculations if effective cobalt concentration was considered rather than the average one. The latter was obtained by bulk elemental analysis, while the former was extracted from cobalt concentration depth-profiles measured with Auger electron spectroscopy. These measurements indicated that in impregnated samples containing non-framework cobalt there could be much more cobalt near the crystal surface than within the crystal. Because high cobalt concentration can lead to an invisible phosphorus, only nuclei deep within the crystal contribute to the NMR signal. In such a case, the effective concentration is simply the concentration of cobalt far from the crystal surface. In our case, two impregnated samples with different bulk cobalt concentrations exhibited equal relaxation rates. Previously, such a case was misinterpreted as a case, in which nuclear spin-lattice relaxation was independent of cobalt concentration. AES measurements, however, revealed, that although average concentrations of the two samples were different by a factor of two, their effective concentrations were equal and thus in complete agreement with observed relaxation rates.