O and N NMR studies of the Co(II), Cu(II) and Mn(II) complexes of -proline in aqueous solution

The ¹⁷O and ¹⁴N paramagnetic transverse relaxation time and chemical shift of proline as well as of water, in aqueous solutions of Co(II), Cu(II) and Mn(II) were measured as a function of pH, temperature, and metal ion concentration. The relaxation results were fitted to a theoretical equation linking the Swift-Connick equation to the stability constants of the major complexes in equilibrium. Stability constants for the major complexes of the three ions in this work were determined, along with thermodynamic parameters for some of the complexes. Two complexes of Co(II) were detected directly by ¹⁷O NMR at basic pH, and were assigned to CoPrO₂ and CoPro₃⁻. The hyperfine coupling constant for these two complexes, A/h, was determined directly from the isotropic shift and was found to be −0.63 and −0.31 MHz, respectively. CoPrO₂ could be detected in the pH range 6–12, for Co(II) concentrations greater than 0.04 M, and its chemical shift was around 700 ppm downfield from free proline, at 300 K. CoPro₃⁻ was detected only at pH 11, in the temperature range 275–284 K, with a chemical shift of 390 ppm downfield from free proline.