I distinctly remember listening to Rich Eisenberg tell me about his para-hydrogen project back in the 1990s. My eyes glazed over as he talked about alpha and beta spins. There was also a post-doc named Simon Duckett (who is brilliant, but we did not know this at the time) who really carried the para-hydrogen work to new heights. PHIP is Para-Hydrogen Induced Polarization, and because of the transfer of polarization, allows you to observe otherwise undetectable compounds in the NMR spectrum. I thought I would give it a try. This was just a test run to make sure we can get the 50:50 ortho:para mixture and observe the effect. Rusty sand in the RB flask. Check. Added the H2, Cooled for a few hours in liquid N2. Transfer to the NMR tube all while still at liq N2 temps.

Then like the movie, to the NMR spectrometer.

I actually just kept it frozen and walked the sample down to the spectrometer.

Success! The bottom spectrum is the para-hydrogen enhanced hydrides. Took some virtual hand holding by Simon to get me to this point. On to try out our ruthenium complexes.