Global and internal molecular dynamics of poly(acrylamide-co-allyl 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucopyranoside) glycopolymers from 13C NMR relaxation studies

13C spin-lattice and spin–spin relaxation times and nuclear Overhauser enhancements have been used to examine the molecular dynamics of the α- (1) and β- (2) anomeric forms of poly(acrylamide-co-allyl 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucopyranoside) glycopolymers. The timescale of motions and the spatial restriction of these motions were determined by using various forms of the "model-free" approach. It is shown that the motions of the C—H vectors of the polymer backbone may be described by a scaled Lorentzian spectral density function, giving rise to an effective correlation time for overall tumbling. The temperature dependence of this correlation time suggests that the overall motion is dependent on viscosity. The overall motion of the polymer molecules is shown to be anisotropic in nature by including the spin–spin relaxation data in the analysis. The N-acetyl methyl and sugar hydroxymethyl (C6) groups exhibit internal motions. The activation energies associated with these internal motions are derived. The difference in relaxation rates between the α and β anomeric forms, though small, suggests that the motions of the sugar ring may be different for the two systems. This conclusion is supported by potential energy contour map calculations, which indicate that the β anomer (2) has almost twice the conformational flexibility of the α anomer (1).