Syntheses and structural studies of Schiff bases involving hydrogen bonds

New Schiff bases have been prepared by reacting 3-hydroxy-4-pyridine- carboxaldehyde with various amines. NMR spectroscopic methods provided clear evidence that the Schiff bases exist in the solid state and in solution as hydroxyimino tautomers with the E-configuration. A study of the stabilities of the tautomeric forms and the different conformers has been carried out using density functional calculations at the B3LYP/6-31G** level.