Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.130, No.33, 11056-11065, 2008
Application of solid-state Cl-35 NMR to the structural characterization of hydrochloride pharmaceuticals and their polymorphs
Solid-state Cl-35 NMR (SSNMR) spectroscopy is shown to be a useful probe of structure and polymorphism in HCl pharmaceuticals, which constitute ca. 50% of known pharmaceutical salts. Chlorine NMR spectra, single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction data, and complementary ab initio calculations are presented for a series of HCl local anesthetic (LA) pharmaceuticals and some of their polymorphs. Cl-35 MAS SSNMR spectra acquired at 21.1 T and spectra of stationary samples at 9.4 and 21.1 T allow for extraction of chlorine electric field gradient (EFG) and chemical shift (CS) parameters. The sensitivity of the Cl-35 EFG and CS tensors to subtle changes in the chlorine environments is reflected in the Cl-35 SSNMR powder patterns. The Cl-35 SSNMR spectra are shown to serve as a rapid fingerprint for identifying and distinguishing polymorphs, as well as a useful tool for structural interpretation. First principles calculations of Cl-35 EFG and CS tensor parameters are in good agreement with the experimental values. The sensitivity of the chlorine NMR interaction tensor parameters to the chlorine chemical environment and the potential for modeling these sites with ab initio calculations hold much promise for application to polymorph screening for a wide variety of HCl pharmaceuticals.