[Arathor]

I find it very hard to read and interpreter NMR data. My main problem is I don't really know what to expect; for example I'm working on proving [RuClH(CO)(PPh₃] is what I synthesized.
This is my thought process so far.
31P{1H}
- three phosphorus bonded to Ru and 2 are chemically equivalent and one is not chemically equivalent.
so I should expect two signals? and how do I know what signal applies to which phosphorus.
1H NMR
-I'm thinking I should expect a triplet 1:2:1 ratio
but what I see is a doublet of triplets I think

Can someone help with the thought process of this I need to do this on another two complexes also so I'd like to understand this.

I'll edit the post as I continue to figure out this problem.

31P{1H}

1H NMR

[mjc123]

three phosphorus bonded to Ru and 2 are chemically equivalent and one is not chemically equivalent.

So your compound is [RuClH(CO)(PPh₃)₃]? Just to be clear.
So you have 6 ligands. What ways are there to arrange 3 identical ligands in an octahedral complex? For each, how many of the 3 are equivalent?

1H NMR -I'm thinking I should expect a triplet 1:2:1 ratio

Why?

but what I see is a doublet of triplets I think

What does that suggest to you? How does it relate to what you said about the phosphorus?

[Arathor]

Thanks for responding,
I took some time to understand the spectra

3 identical ligands in an octahedral complex

I can see how the ligands can be rearranged but I don't see how we can get them all to be chemically equivalent.

I'm assuming right now that there is one unique phosphorus and 2 chemically equivalent

My answer

1H NMR
The hydride couples to the unique triphenylphosphine this is trans to the hydride and we should expect the coupling constant for this to be larger. For this coupling we should expect a doublet.

The hydride will also couple to the two chemically equivalent P's so we can expect to see a 1:2:1 triplet. The hydride is cis to the chemically equivalent PPH3 so we can expect the coupling will be smaller than the trans PPH3 to hydride.

So we should see a doublet of triplets. H NMR solved

31P{1H} NMR
The unique P coupling to each of the chemically equivalent P's showing a triplet 1:2:1 and then we should see the chemically equivalent P coupling to the unique P giving a doublet.

Looking at the spectra I only see two peaks (expected) however they are both singlets (this is probably because of isomers as Mjc123 suggested)
 
I had other spectra and it had substituted the Chlorine group for a hydride and we did get a triplet and a doublet so I'm thinking that this might just be an experimental error.

[mjc123]

Well, let's have a closer look at this.
There are 2 ways to arrange 3 identical ligands in an octahedral complex. They are called mer (meridional) and fac (facial). See diagram below.
To a first approximation (assuming the 3 other ligands are the same), the 3 P atoms in the fac isomer are equivalent. If the other ligands are all different, the P atoms won't be exactly equivalent, but I'd expect them to have fairly similar chemical shifts. (Correct me if I'm wrong, nmr experts.) In the mer isomer, the 2 P atoms trans to each other are equivalent, but the third is different, so I would expect 2 signals at rather different chemical shifts. That looks like what we have in the ³¹P spectrum.
If you add a hydrogen, you will see that in the fac isomer it must be trans to one of the Ps and cis to the other two, giving rise to a doublet of triplets, as you observe in the ¹H spectrum. For the mer isomer, there are two possibilities. In one, the H is also trans to one P and cis to the other two. In the other, the H is cis to all 3, though they are not equivalent, so rather than a quartet you would get a doublet of triplets, with a smaller doublet coupling than in the trans case, so that it might approximate to a quartet.
Taking all this together would suggest that you have the mer isomer with the H trans to the unique P.