Chemical Compound - Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Carbon-13 magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Naturally occurring carbon is composed almost entirely of the carbon-12 isotope, which has no magnetic moment and thus is not detectable by NMR techniques. However, carbon-13 (13C) atoms, which make up about 1 percent of all carbon atoms, do absorb radio-frequency waves in a manner similar to hydrogen. Thus, 13C NMR is possible, and the technique provides valuable information about the structure of the carbon skeleton in organic molecules. Because, on average, only 1 out of every 100 carbon atoms in a molecule is a 13C isotope and because 13C atoms absorb electromagnetic radiation very weakly, 13C NMR signals are about 6,000 times weaker than proton signals. Modern instrumentation has overcome this handicap, and 13C NMR has become a readily accessible analytical technique. As in proton spectra, the 13C peaks are plotted as chemical shifts relative to an internal standard, such as the carbon resonance of tetramethylsilane.

The spectrum of the cyclic hydrocarbon methylcyclohexane serves as a useful example of 13C NMR spectroscopy. The chemical shifts of different carbon atoms are larger than for hydrogen atoms, and the five magnetically different 13C atoms appear as five distinct peaks. Unlike proton spectra, however, the peak areas are not directly proportional to the number of absorbing nuclei. Thus, each of the peaks at 35.8 ppm and 26.8 ppm (generated by the two carbon atoms at the positions labeled 3 and 4, respectively, in the figure) are larger than each of the peaks at 23.1 ppm, 33.1 ppm, and 26.8 ppm (generated by the single carbon atoms at positions 1, 2, and 5, respectively) but not in an exact 2:1 ratio. The two atoms labeled at position 3 are magnetically equivalent (as are the two at position 4), because the molecule is symmetrical about a line drawn vertically through its centre.

The 13C spectrum for methylcyclohexane does not show any multiplets arising from spin-spin splitting for two different reasons. The first reason is that spin-spin coupling between two adjacent 13C atoms is so weak that it does not show up on the spectrum. This is because nearly all the 13C atoms in a molecule are bonded to more abundant 12C atoms, which do not give rise to spin-spin splitting. The second reason is that the spin-spin splitting that does occur between 13C atoms bonded to hydrogen atoms has been removed from the spectrum by an instrumental technique termed proton decoupling. Proton decoupling eliminates all the splitting patterns that would normally be observed in a 13C spectrum for all carbon atoms bonded to one or more hydrogen atoms and is done routinely to simplify the spectrum.

Analyzed alone or in combination, proton and 13C NMR spectra allow correct structures to be assigned to many organic compounds, including most isomers.