Carbon-13 chemical shift tensor measurements for nitrogen-dense compounds

This paper reports the principal values of the ¹³C chemical shift tensors for five nitrogen-dense compounds (i.e., cytosine, uracil, imidazole, guanidine hydrochloride, and aminoguanidine hydrochloride). Although these are all fundamentally important compounds, the majority do not have ¹³C chemical shift tensors reported in the literature. The chemical shift tensors are obtained from ¹H→¹³C cross-polarization magic-angle spinning (CP/MAS) experiments that were conducted at a high field of 18.8 T to suppress the effects of ¹⁴N-¹³C residual dipolar coupling. Quantum chemical calculations using density functional theory are used to obtain the ¹³C magnetic shielding tensors for these compounds. The best agreement with experiment arises from calculations using the hybrid functional PBE0 or the double-hybrid functional PBE0-DH, along with the triple-zeta basis sets TZ2P or pc-3, respectively, and intermolecular effects modeled using large clusters of molecules with electrostatic embedding through the COSMO approach. These measurements are part of an ongoing effort to expand the catalog of accurate ¹³C chemical shift tensor measurements, with the aim of creating a database that may be useful for benchmarking the accuracy of quantum chemical calculations, developing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) crystallography protocols, or aiding in applications involving machine learning or data mining. This work was conducted at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory as part of a 2-week school for introducing undergraduate students to practical laboratory experience that will prepare them for scientific careers or postgraduate studies.