Interpreting Proton NMR – Overview

A bird’s eye view of 1H NMR spectra interpretation in comic form.  Here we first dissect the visual mess into the three major components implicit in every peak, and then systematically approach each component to show the connection between spectral information and molecular parameters.  Click on the image to expand; for printing, a resolution-independent PDF is available here.

Side-note: a number of people have been looking for this to be published in the last year.  If you’re one of them… I’m sorry for the tardiness!  NMR is the flagship of organic structure identification, revealing much more information than techniques like IR; the corollary is that interpreting NMR is a bigger and more nuanced topic than comparable techniques (on both interpretation and theoretical grounds).  I’ve been going back-and-forth the drawing board to select the right amount of content to include in this overview, and what to reserve for others.  Hopefully this final version is a good compromise.  I encourage and appreciate your comments and questions, and will make updates to the spread with your feedback.

Side-note 2:  Do you speak another language and would like to see this translated?  Contact me and we’ll try to work something out.

Update (R4, 15 Dec 2011):  Updated with corrections.  I thank Shaun MacLean (U of Manitoba) and James Ashenhurst (Mastering Organic Chemistry) for their helpful suggestions.