Investigation of 1H NMR chemical shifts of organic dye with hydrogen bonds and ring currents.

The (1)H NMR chemical shifts were theoretically computed for the organic dyes 2-(2,6-dimethyl-4H-pyran-4-ylidene)-malononitrile (1), cyano-(2,6-dimethyl-4H-pyran-4-ylidene)-acetic acid methyl ester (2), 2-(2,6-bis(4-(dimethylamino)styryl)-4H-pyran-4-ylidene)-malononitrile (3), and methyl 2-(2,6-bis(4-(dimethylamino)styryl)-4H-pyran-4-ylidene)-2-cyanoacetate (4) at the GIAO/B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p)//B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level of theory. Moreover, the intramolecular rotational barriers of the molecules were calculated to evaluate the internal flexibility with respect to the torsional degrees of freedom, and the nuclear-independent chemical shifts (NICS) were employed to analyze the ring currents. The difference was explained in terms of intramolecular hydrogen bonds and ring currents of the molecules. The (1)H NMR spectra were reproduced by experiments for the comparison with computationally constructed data. Our results suggest a good guideline in interpreting (1)H NMR chemical shifts using computational methods and furthermore a reliable perspective for designing molecular structures.