Biogenic amorphous calcium carbonates (ACCs) play a crucial role in the mineralization process of calcareous tissue. Most biogenic ACCs contain Mg ions, but the coordination environment of Mg, which may influence the kinetics of the phase transformation of an ACC, remains poorly understood. We demonstrate that Mg-25 solid-state NMR can be used to probe the coordination shells of Mg in synthetic ACCs. The variation in Mg-25 chemical shifts suggests that Mg−O bond lengths increase as Mg content increases. On the basis of the Van Vleck second moments obtained from the double-resonance NMR experiments, we infer that the average number of carbonates surrounding the central Mg ion is in the range of 4−4.5 and that there is at least one water molecule coordinated to each Mg ion for the synthetic Mg-ACC samples. We suggest that the stability of Mg-ACC is owing to the structural water bound to Mg ions, which increases considerably the activation energy associated with the dehydration of Mg-ACC.

We find two types of carbonate ions in Mg stabilized amorphous calcium carbonate (Mg-ACC), whose short-range orders are identical to those of ACC and amorphous magnesium carbonate (AMC). Mg-ACC comprises a homogeneous mixture of the nano-clusters of ACC and AMC. Their relative amount varies systematically at different pH.

Electron microscopy is currently the most powerful method to discern the mechanisms of solid-state transformation and dissolution-reprecipitation for the studies of biomineralization. In this work, we show that solid-state NMR spectroscopy can serve as a useful complementary technique to characterize the crystallization pathway of a mineral phase. On the basis of the so-called NMR spin-diffusion method, direct evidence is given to support that the formation of the apatite phase within liposomes occurs via the solid-state transformation of the disordered phase. In this thermodynamically downhill process, the final step is the depletion of the structural water in the disordered phase, whose structural order of the phosphorus species is comparable to that of apatite.

Samples of carboxylate-fluorapatite are prepared with citric, tricarballylic, and glutaric acids under hydrothermal conditions. The size of the hexagonal rods differs significantly for the three samples, of which the citric-acid sample exhibits the smallest dimension along the [h00] direction. The solid-state NMR data reveal that all the citrate molecules of citrate-fluorapatite are in direct contact with the fluorapatite surface and that there are at least two binding modes accounting for the interaction between citrate and fluorapatite surface. In addition to the electrostatic interaction between the carboxylate carbons and the calcium ions, some citrate molecules also form hydrogen bond between the hydroxyl group of citrate and the orthophosphate ion of fluorapatite. This hydrogen-bond interaction is highly ordered and may play an important role in the formation of the spherulites.