Study of heavy atom influence on poly-halogenated compounds using DP4/MM-DP4+/DP4+: insights and trends

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy complemented by density functional theory (DFT) calculations is a crucial tool for structural elucidation. Nevertheless, the precision of NMR predictions is influenced by the 'heavy atom effect', wherein heavy atoms affect the shielding values of neighboring light atoms (HALA effect). Standard practice in the field involves removing the conflicting signals. However, in the case of polyhalogenated molecules, this is challenging due to the significant amount of information that ends up being lost. In this study the HALA is thoroughly investigated in the context of three leading probability methods: DP4, MM-DP4+, and DP4+. The results show that DP4+ is more sensitive to C-Cl or C-Br signals, which is a consequence of the longer bond lengths computed with DFT. Removing conflicting signals is highly effective in DP4+, but has an uncertain outcome in methods based on molecular mechanics geometries, such as DP4 and MM-DP4+. A detailed investigation of the effect of bond distance on the corresponding chemical shifts has also been conducted.