2014 Volume 14 Issue 6 Pages 253-260
Molecular system confined in nanometer-sized space provides the specific and curious structure and properties as the molecular assembly and will be good candidates for the model systems to examine “size effect” or “confinement effect” on the functional materials. Temperature shift on melting point and the anisotropic molecular arrangements are known as the typical examples of the “confinement effect” on the molecular assembly. Especially, the molecular motion in the confined molecular system is one of the important problems to understand the specific properties which are different from the bulk one. In this paper, we introduced our latest NMR studies about the dynamic behavior and the phase transition phenomenon of the confined molecular systems. At first, we demonstrated briefly the molecular motion detectable for NMR spectroscopy, and then described the potential profile which characterizes the guest-wall interaction in the 2-dimensional nanoslits. Next, we discussed the effect of the potential field on the dynamic behavior in the cases of heavy water and adamantane confined in activated carbon fiber. Finally, we discussed the specific phase transition phenomenon of the confined molecular system, in which the confinement plays an important role to the occurrence.
