Applications of Transition Metal NMR Spectroscopy in Coordination Chemistry

Abstract

It is an intriguing task, to probe a complex compound at the metal centre itself instead of relying on secondary informations obtained from the periphery built up by the coordination sphere. Nonetheless, NMR spectroscopy still anchors in (mostly) routine measurements concerned with ligand nuclei such as ¹H, ¹³C, ¹⁹F, and ³¹P. Only very cautiously, inorganic chemists are moving into the promising area of metal NMR. But what is it really, a chemist, working in the fields of coordination chemistry, organometallic chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry or related disciplines, can get out of a metal-NMR spectrum? We shall try to answer this question by (i) elucidating the interpretive background and (ii) presenting a number of illustrative examples where transition metal NMR is exploited to solve problems which otherwise could not easily be dealt with.