Two applications of NMR to study natural and man-made motion of molecules in situations of practical interest will be presented, the thermal molecular motion of molecules in the study of catalysis and the rotational motion of nanoscale particles to study fluid flow.

Among the many potential applications, zeolites are prominent in petrochemical industry as an active catalyst. A study of dynamics of absorbed molecular dynamics in complex zeolite framework is essential to understand the mechanisms for chemical reaction. Here, NMR lineshapes for C¹³ nuclei of acetonotrile absorbed molecule in chabazite and ferrierite zeolites as a function of temperature are presented. A proposed NMR lineshape model is discussed ¹.

Cu₂O, a non stoichiometric defect semiconductor, a potential material for solar cells has broad NMR spectra of 4MHz and hence is a suitable candidate to study slow rotational motion of these particles suspended in a fluid by the proposed NMR method. This requires nano or still small size particles. The preparation of Cu₂O nanocryatals is presented along with the lineshape observed from these crystals suspended in toluene.