THE DEPT EXPERIMENT:

• Another technique called Distortionless Enhancement by

Polarzation Transfer, known as DEPT. It gives the number of
hydrogens attached to a given carbon atom.
• We have three experiment of DEP.
• DEPT-45, only carbon atoms that bear an attached
hydrogen will produce a peak.
• (DEPT-90) shows peaks only for those carbon atoms that
are part of a methine (CH) group. In a DEPT-135 spectrum,
methine and methyl carbons give rise to positive peaks,
whereas methylene carbons appear as inverse peaks.
Quaternary carbons, which have no attached hydrogens are
not recorded in a DEPT experiment.
A sample DEPT plot for isopentyl acetate is shown in
the following figure
•The lowest trace in the figure is the usual broad-band-decoupled

13C spectrum. The second trace from the bottom (called a DEPT-

45) in which the only signals detected are those that arise from

protonated carbons. The third trace (called a DEPT-90) shows

those carbons that bear a single hydrogen are seen. The

uppermost trace is called DEPT-135. shows two phases depending

on whether the number of attached hydrogens is an odd or an

even number. Signals arising from CH or CH3 groups will give

positive peaks, while signals arising from CH2 groups will form

negative (inverse) peaks.

• The DEPT-135 spectrum of isopentyl acetate
shows in a positive phase a tallest signal
corresponding to two methyl groups at 22.3 ppm,
shorter signal of the acetyl group at 20.8 ppm
and the methine is still smaller peak at 24.9 ppm.
Negative peaks at 37.1 and 63.0 ppm
corresponding to 2 methylene groups. The
deshielded one is OCH2. The carbonyl carbon (5)
does not appear in the DEPT spectrum since it
has no attached hydrogen atoms.
• The proton-decoupled l3C NMR spectrum of
citronellol shows the peaks at 131 ppm assigned
to carbon 7, while the taller peak at 125 ppm
must arise from carbon 6, which has an attached
hydrogen. The DEPT spectrum of citronellol
shows the positive peak at 125 ppm to carbon 6.
Peak at 131 ppm is missing in the DEPT
spectrum, since carbon 7 has no attached
hydrogens.
•The peak at 61 ppm is negative in the DEPT-135

spectrum indicating that it is due to a methylene

group and it is deshielded by OH.

13CNMR spectrum of citronellol
DEPT-135 spectrum of citronellol
• The three methyl carbons appear at the highest

values of magnetic field and give positive peaks

in the DEPT-135 spectrum.

• We can assign the peak at 17 ppm to carbon, 8

and the peak at 19 ppm to carbon 10 The peak at

25 ppm is actually two peaks, appearing by

coincidence at the same value of chemical shift.

• The DEPT-135 spectrum shows clearly that one

of the peaks is positive (corresponding to the

methyl carbon at C9) and the other is negative

(corresponding to the methylene carbon at C5).

•The positive peak remains must correspond to

the methine position at C3 (30 ppm). The two

remaining negative peaks (at 37 and 40 ppm) are

assigned to the methylene carbons at C4 and C2.