ABSTRACT
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is another analytical technique, which is also fairly new. Following its discovery in 1946 and first recorded applications in 1973 (Willard et al., 1974; Pfeffer and Gerasimowicz, 1989), improvements in instrumentation, and advancement in techniques were so rapid that today it is considered a very powerful and important analytical method. Because of the use of radiowaves, analysis by NMR spectroscopy was in the beginning discredited for its low speed and low sensitivity. However, with the development of a Fourier transform NMR spectrometer employing high-field super-conducting electromagnets, the speed and sensitivity of analysis have been improved significantly. Today, this method continues to attract an ever-increasing discipline of sciences, from chemistry, physics, biochemical, medical to agricultural and soil sciences. Its counterpart in medical science, using the same NMR principles, is known under the name MRI, for magnetic resonance imaging. As indicated before, the only difference from NMR is that MRI produces images of the internal organs of the human body, important for diagnosis of pathological disorders.
