AbstractThe use of the nominal value of the chemical shift of the solvent to calibrate the spectrometer in13C NMR spectroscopy was found to introduce errors due to the effect which the solute has on the solvent. In addition, hexamethyldisiloxane (HM) is proposed as an internal standard; owing to its high boiling point it is easier to manipulate than tetramethylsilane (TMS) and it is therefore possible to prepare solutions of known concentrations. In order to convert the data obtained with this standard to the TMS scale, the chemical shift of HM was determined in 16 solvents using cyclohexane as external standard in a spherical cell (5% w/w concentration of HM) as a function of the solvent factorg2. Comparing these results with a similar plot obtained previously for TMS by other workers, it is possible to convert one type of data to the other by a simple linear expression.