text: In proton NMR spectroscopy, deuterated solvent (enriched to >99% deuterium) is typically used to avoid recording a large interfering signal or signals from the proton(s) (i.e., hydrogen-1) present in the solvent itself. If nondeuterated chloroform (containing a full equivalent of protium) were used as solvent, the solvent signal would almost certainly overwhelm and obscure any nearby analyte signals. In addition, modern instruments usually require the presence of deuterated solvent, as the field frequency is locked using the deuterium signal of the solvent to prevent frequency drift. Commercial chloroform-d does, however, still contain a small amount (0.2% or less) of non-deuterated chloroform; this results in a small singlet at 7.26 ppm, known as the residual solvent peak, which is frequently used as an internal chemical shift reference. 
  In carbon-13 NMR spectroscopy, the sole carbon in deuterated chloroform shows a triplet at a chemical shift of 77.16 ppm with the three peaks being about equal size, resulting from splitting by spin coupling to the attached spin-1 deuterium atom ( has a chemical shift of 77.36 ppm). 
  Deuterated chloroform is a general purpose NMR solvent, as it is not very chemically reactive and unlikely to exchange its deuterium with its solute, and its low boiling point allows for easy sample recovery. It, however, it is incompatible with strongly basic, nucleophilic, or reducing analytes, including many organometallic compounds.