NMR Studies of Agricultural Compounds. Applications of Achiral and Chiral Lanthanide Shift Reagents to the Herbicide,Fenoxaprop-Ethyl

The 200 MHz H NMR spectra of the herbicide, fenoxaprop-ethyl, 1, have been studied in CDCl₃ solution at ambient temperatures as the racemic ester free base with the added chiral lanthanide shift reagent (LSR), tris 3 - (heptafluoropropylhydroxymethylene) - (+) - camphorato]europium(III), Eu(HFC)₃, 2, with some additional runs using the achiral LSR, tris(6,6,7,7,8,8,8-heptafluoro-2,2-dimethyl-3,5-octanedionato) europium(III), Eu(FOD)₃, 3, for supplemental spectral simplification. With 2, definite enantiomeric shift differences (ΔΔδ) were observed only for the CH₃CH₂O resonance. Although increased spectral complexity for the CH₂O signal was seen with added 2, this could have resulted from anisochrony of the diastereotopic protons, H_a and H_b, of this methylene group rather than true ΔΔδ, since the achiral 3 led to near-baseline separation between the CH_aH_bO signals. Lanthanide-induced shift (LIS) magnitudes were interpreted as consistent with predominant LSR binding at the ester carbonyl.