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Chemical Shift

Chemical Shift

When a molecule is placed in a magnetic field, its electrons circulate and produce magnetic fields known as Induced magnetic fields. These induced magnetic field of electrons at the proton get oriented in such a way that they oppose the applied magnetic field. The field felt by the proton is diminished in this way and the proton gets shielded.
In the case of the induced magnetic field of circulating π electrons about nearby nuclei, these fields may oppose or reinforce the applied magnetic fields on the protons, depending upon the location of the proton. If the induced field opposes the applied field the proton is Shielded

A nucleus whose chemical shift has been decreased due to addition of electron density, magnetic induction, or other effects.

and if the induced field reinforces the applied magnetic field, the field felt by the proton is reinforced and proton is said to be deshielded

A nucleus whose chemical shift has been increased due to removal of electron density, magnetic induction, or other effects.

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Shielding shifts the absorption upfield and deshielding shifts the absorption downfield to get an effective field strength necessary for absorption.

Such shifts (compared with a standard reference, generally TMS

Tetramethylsilane(TMS) used as reference compound for ¹H NMR because it has a strong, sharp resonance line from its 12 protons, with a chemical shift at low resonance frequency relative to almost all other ¹H resonances. For details click on TMS

in the positions of NMR absorptions which arise due to the shielding or deshielding of protons by the electrons are called chemical shifts. The NMR signal for a particular proton in a molecule appear at different field strengths compared to a signal from TMS, This difference in the absorption position of the proton with respect to TMS signal is called chemical shift (δ-value). It is not measured in gauss but is measured in equivalent frequency units which is then divided by the frequency of the spectrometer used. This gives the value of δ.

Protons with the same chemical shift are called equivalent protons. Non-equivalent protons have different chemical shifts. δ(delta) or 𝜏(tau) scales are commonly use for measuring chemical shift. In majority of organic compounds, protons resonate at a lower field than the protons of TMS. Thus assigning delta value for TMS equal to zero, a scale can be defined in which most proton resonances are of the same sign. Any proton or set of protons which absorb at a field lower than TMS is given a positive value for δ.
Chemical shift of a substance with respect to TMS can be calculated by measuring resonance frequencies of sample and TMS by the given formula-


Δ𝜈 is the frequency shift. The value of chemical shift is expressed in parts per million(ppm). The value of δ is in between 0 to 10. In the 𝜏(tau) scale, signal for the standard reference, TMS is taken as 10ppm.
The two scales are related as-
𝜏 = 10 − δ

A small numeric value of δ means a small downfield shift where a large δ value means large downfield shift. However, on the 𝜏 scale, a small value of 𝜏 means a low field absorption and a high 𝜏 value means a high field absorption.

Factors Affecting the Chemical Shift

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