Carbon-13/carbon-12 isotope effects on nitrogen-15 chemical shielding in some diamagnetic cyano complexes

Carbon-13/carbon-12 isotope-induced 15N chemical shifts of 0.06 to 0.10 ppm have been observed for the cyanide ion and several transition metal cyanides. In each case, the 15N resonance of the 13C labelled isotopomers is to high field of that in the corresponding carbon-12 species. The sensitivity of the 15N and 13C shielding constants in the cyanide ion to small changes in the CN bond length are evaluated using the theoretical formulation of Jameson: (∂σ(15N)/∂r)e = −872 ± 160 ppm/Å and (∂σ(13C)/∂r)e = −473 ± 90 ppm/Å. Nitrogen-15 chemical shifts in the metal complexes exhibit basically the same behaviour as do the 13C chemical shifts in these same complexes.