Stereospecificity of (1) H, (13) C and (15) N shielding constants in the isomers of methylglyoxal bisdimethylhydrazone: problem with configurational assignment based on (1) H chemical shifts.

In the (13) C NMR spectra of methylglyoxal bisdimethylhydrazone, the (13) C-5 signal is shifted to higher frequencies, while the (13) C-6 signal is shifted to lower frequencies on going from the EE to ZE isomer following the trend found previously. Surprisingly, the (1) H-6 chemical shift and (1) J(C-6,H-6) coupling constant are noticeably larger in the ZE isomer than in the EE isomer, although the configuration around the -CH═N- bond does not change. This paradox can be rationalized by the C-H⋯N intramolecular hydrogen bond in the ZE isomer, which is found from the quantum-chemical calculations including Bader's quantum theory of atoms in molecules analysis. This hydrogen bond results in the increase of δ((1) H-6) and (1) J(C-6,H-6) parameters. The effect of the C-H⋯N hydrogen bond on the (1) H shielding and one-bond (13) C-(1) H coupling complicates the configurational assignment of the considered compound because of these spectral parameters. The (1) H, (13) C and (15) N chemical shifts of the 2- and 8-(CH(3) )(2) N groups attached to the -C(CH(3) )═N- and -CH═N- moieties, respectively, reveal pronounced difference. The ab initio calculations show that the 8-(CH(3) )(2) N group conjugate effectively with the π-framework, and the 2-(CH(3) )(2) N group twisted out from the plane of the backbone and loses conjugation. As a result, the degree of charge transfer from the N-2- and N-8- nitrogen lone pairs to the π-framework varies, which affects the (1) H, (13) C and (15) N shieldings.