NMR spectra, GIAO and charge density calculations of five-membered aromatic heterocycles.

The B3LYP/6-31+G(d) molecular geometry optimized structures of 17 five-membered heterocycles were employed together with the gauge including atomic orbitals (GIAO) density functional theory (DFT) method at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p), B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) and B3LYP/6-311+G(2d,p) levels of theory for the calculation of proton and carbon chemicals shifts and coupling constants. The method of geometry optimization for pyrrole (1), N-methylpyrrole (2) and thiophene (7) using the larger 6-311++G(d,p) basis sets at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p), B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p), B3LYP/6-31+G(2d,p) and B3LYP/cc-pVTZ levels of theory gave little difference between calculated and experimental values of coupling constants. In general, the (1)H and 13C chemical shifts for all compounds are in good agreement with theoretical calculations using the smaller 6-31 basis set. The values of nJHH(n=3, 4, 5) and rmnJ(CH)(n=1, 2, 3, 4) were predicted well using the larger 6-31+G(d,p) and 6-311++G(d,p) basis sets and at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p), B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p), B3LYP/6-31+G(2d,2p) levels of theory. The computed atomic charges [Mülliken; Natural Bond Orbital Analysis (NBO); Merz-Kollman (MK); CHELP and CHELPG] for the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) geometry optimized structures of 1-17 were used to explore correlations with the experimental proton and carbon chemical shifts. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.