There is no element on earth that gets as much air-time as carbon. I mean, let’s be honest, when’s the last time you caught up on the news when you didn’t see carbon in the limelight – diamonds, carbon dating, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon fiber.
In terms of benchtop NMR, this is really no less the case. Although carbon is a pretty uncooperative NMR nuclei (13C: I = ½, 1.1% abundant, very insensitive and only 25% the gyromagnetic ratio of proton), one of the most common questions we get asked at Nanalysis is “can you run carbon?”
This makes sense of course, despite being only a mediocre-at-best NMR nuclei – everything is made of carbon and it is an excellent structural confirmation tool. Additionally, it does have a wide spectral width (0-250 ppm) and very indicative chemical shifts.
Please see the example below of diethylphthalate in d6-DMSO.