Abstract: | In addition to the static parameters of the chemical shifts and coupling constants, which serve as a source of knowledge for molecular structure and stereochemistry, an NMR spectrum can frequently furnish dynamic quantities characterizing relaxation and exchange phenomena. The information about nuclear switching processes has proved to be particularly useful in practice for the detection of internal molecular motions and for the estimation or determination of the corresponding energy barriers. A plethora of studies of this nature has in the past been performed on simple proton spectra. Methodological developments of recent years have led to a significant reduction of the effort required for the quantitative dynamic evaluation of NMR spectra arising from complex spin systems or involving other nuclei. In many cases it has, moreover, become possible to extract detailed mechanistic information inaccessible by other means. The practical execution of such analyses will be explained and illustrated by a selected number of applications. |