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Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an important molecular characterisation method that may aid the synthesis and production of graphenes, especially the molecular-scale graphene nanoislands that have gathered significant attention due to their potential electronic and optical applications. Herein, carbon-13 NMR chemical shifts were calculated using density functional theory methods for finite, increasing-size fragments of graphene, hydrogenated graphene (graphane) and fluorinated graphene (fluorographene). Both concentric hexagon-shaped (zigzag boundary) and crenellated (armchair) fragments were investigated to gain information on the effect of different types of flake boundaries. Convergence trends of the (13)C chemical shift with respect to increasing fragment size and the boundary effects were found and rationalised in terms of low-lying electronically excited states. The results predict characteristic behaviour in the (13)C NMR spectra. Particular attention was paid to the features of the signals arising from the central carbon atoms of the fragments, for graphene and crenellated graphene on the one hand and graphane and fluorographene on the other hand, to aid the interpretation of the overall spectral characteristics. In graphene, the central nuclei become more shielded as the system size increases whereas the opposite behaviour is observed for graphane and fluorographene. The (13)C signals from some of the perimeter nuclei of the crenellated fragments obtain smaller and larger chemical shift values than central nuclei for graphene and graphane/fluorographene, respectively. The diameter of the graphenic quantum dots with zigzag boundary correlates well with the predicted carbon-13 chemical shift range, thus enabling estimation of the size of the system by NMR spectroscopy. The results provide data of predictive quality for future NMR analysis of the graphene nanoflake materials.

Nuclear magnetic shieldings have been calculated at the density functional theory (DFT) level for stacks of benzene, hexadehydro[12]annulene, dodecadehydro[18]annulene, and hexabenzocoronene. The magnetic shieldings due to the ring currents in the adjacent molecules have been estimated by calculating nucleus independent molecular shieldings for the monomer in the atomic positions of neighbor molecules. The calculations show that the independent shielding model works reasonably well for the H NMR shieldings of benzene and hexadehydro[12]annulene, whereas for the larger molecules and for theC NMR shieldings the interaction between the molecules leads to shielding effects that are at least of the same size as the ring current contributions from the adjacent molecules. A better agreement is obtained when the nearest neighbors are also considered at full quantum mechanical (QM) level. The calculations suggest that the nearest solvent molecules must be included in the quantum mechanical system, at least when estimating solvent shifts at the molecular mechanics (MM) level. Current density calculations show that the stacking does not significantly affect the ring current strengths of the individual molecules, whereas the shape of the ring current for a single molecule differs from that of the stacked molecules.

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Solvation-induced shifts in molecular properties can be realistically simulated by employing a dynamic model with explicit solvent molecules. In this work, (13)C NMR chemical shifts of various candidate antenna molecules for dye-sensitised solar cells have been studied by using density-functional theory calculations both in vacuo and by employing a dynamic solvation model. The solvent effects were investigated using instantaneous molecular dynamics snapshots containing the antenna molecule and surrounding acetonitrile solvent molecules. Such calculations take into account the main mechanisms of solvation-induced chemical shifts. We have analysed the contributions to the solvent shift due to the solvent susceptibility anisotropy, changes in the density of the virtual orbital space and the accessibility of the excited states to the pronouncedly local magnetic hyperfine operator. We present Lorentzian-broadened chemical shift stick spectra in which a comparison of the in vacuo and dynamic-solvation model results is graphically illustrated. The results show that the solvent-accessible atoms at the perimeter of the solute are influenced by the virtual states of the solvent molecules, which are visible to the hyperfine operators of the perimeter nuclei. This enables efficient coupling of the ground state of the solute to the magnetically allowed excited states, resulting in a positive chemical shift contribution of the perimeter nuclei. As a result of solvation, the chemical shift signals of perimeter nuclei are found to be displaced towards larger chemical shift values, whereas the nuclei of the inner region of the solute molecules show the opposite trend. The solvent susceptibility anisotropy is found to cause a small and practically constant contribution.