DFT computational schemes for 15N NMR chemical shifts of the condensed nitrogen-containing heterocycles

A systematic density functional theory (DFT) study of the accuracy factors (functionals, basis sets, and solvent effects) for the computation of ¹⁵N NMR chemical shifts has been performed in the series of condensed nitrogen-containing heterocycles. The behavior of the most representative functionals was examined based on the benchmark calculations of ¹⁵N NMR chemical shifts in the reference set of compounds. It was found that the best agreement with experiment was achieved with OLYP functional in combination with aug-pcS-3(N)//pc-2 locally dense basis set scheme providing mean absolute error of 5.2 ppm in the range of about 300 ppm. Taking into account solvent effects was performed within a general Tomasi's polarizable continuum model scheme. It was also found that computationally demanding supermolecular solvation model computations essentially improved some “difficult” cases, as was illustrated with phenanthroline dissolved in methanol. Based on the performed calculations, some 200 unknown ¹⁵N NMR chemical shifts were predicted with a high level of confidence for about 50 real-life condensed nitrogen-containing heterocycles, which could serve as a practical guide in structural elucidation of this class of compounds.