NMR studies of solid state—solvent and H/D isotope effects on hydrogen bond geometries of 1:1 complexes of collidine with carboxylic acids

¹H and ¹⁵N NMR spectra of 10 complexes exhibiting strong OHN hydrogen bonds formed by ¹⁵N-labeled collidine and different proton donors, partially deuterated in mobile proton sites, have been observed by low-temperature NMR spectroscopy using a low-freezing CDF₃/CDF₂Cl mixture as polar aprotic solvent. The following proton donors have been used: HCl, formic acid, acetic acid, various substituted benzoic acids and HBF₄. The slow hydrogen bond exchange regime could be reached below 140 K, which allowed us to resolve ¹⁵N signal splittings due to H/D isotopic substitution. The valence bond order model is used to link the observed NMR parameters to hydrogen bond geometries. The results are compared to those obtained previously Magn. Reson. Chem. 39 (2001) S18] for the same complexes in the organic solids. The increase of the dielectric constant from the organic solids to the solution (30 at 130 K) leads to a change of the hydrogen bond geometries along the geometric correlation line towards the zwitterionic structures, where the proton is partially transferred from oxygen to nitrogen. Whereas the changes of spectroscopic and, hence, geometric parameters are small for the systems which are already zwitterionic in the solid state, large changes are observed for molecular complexes which exhibit almost a full proton transfer from oxygen to nitrogen in the polar liquid solvent.