Multinuclear Residual Quadrupolar Couplings for Structure and Assignment

Most stable isotopes have a nuclear spin >1/2, but the quadrupole interaction poses challenge on their detection by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). On the other hand, the quadrupole interaction is a rich source of structural information that may be exploited for solution NMR in the form of residual quadrupolar couplings (RQCs) of weakly oriented samples. While 2H RQCs are now well established for structure verification and enantiomeric discrimination of organic molecules, we will in this article highlight some recent work on RQCs of other nuclei (especially 7Li and 11B).

Structure Elucidation of Lithium Compounds Using 7 Li Residual Quadrupolar Couplings

A new NMR method for the structure elucidation of lithium compounds under solution-like conditions is presented. It is based on the measurement of ⁷ Li residual quadrupolar couplings (RQCs) in a stretched polystyrene (PS) gel, and comparison to RQCs predicted from crystal or DFT-derived model structures in combination with alignment tensors derived from one-bond ¹ H,¹³ C residual dipolar couplings (RDCs). The method was applied to five lithium model complexes containing monoanionic, bidentate bis(benzoxazole-2-yl)methanide, bis(benzothiazole-2-yl)methanide and bis(pyridyl)methanide ligands, of which two are first introduced in this work. In agreement with the crystalline state, four complexes are monomeric with Li coordinated fourfold by two additional THF molecules, whereas in one complex bulky tBu groups only provide space for one additional THF molecule.