Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance studies of zeolites and layered materials

Intimately tied to the function of a material, no matter what its use is, is the structure of the material. Single-crystal diffraction methods are very good for determining structure, assuming a single crystal of a material can be made. Often times, as in the work that follows, single crystals are not easily synthesized or can not be synthesized. Therefore, powder diffraction methods can be attempted, but they produce an average structure of the whole sample which often tells nothing of the intimate local structure of the material. Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) lends itself to the determination of local structure in microcrystalline samples.;Materials such as zeolites and clay-like materials are not easily synthesized into large single crystals, but the local structure in these materials is important in determining their functionality and use. Solid-state NMR methods have been previously developed to probe the local environments within these types of systems and NMR is utilized in this thesis to study some industrially important materials.;Connectivity experiments that help determine which nuclei are coupled to other nuclei, and thus are close in space to each other, are utilized in combination with basic magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR experiments. In three separate sets of experiments industrially-relevant systems are studied in order to determine the local structure in these systems in order to better understand their uses.;The first system described is a zeolite system in which possible acid sites are identified. Acid sites are believed to be the active sites for catalysis in zeolite systems, and are therefore of importance commercially.;The second study involves the identification of various kinds of acid sites in zeolites and related systems, and also the quantification of some of these acid sites.;Finally, a set of synthetic clay materials was studied in order to better understand their structures. The studies reported here show the usefulness of solid-state NMR in determining the local structures in these complex systems as well as the populations of the different sites within these systems.