A series of alkaline earth chloride hydrates has been studied by solid-state (35/37)Cl NMR spectroscopy in order to characterize the chlorine electric field gradient (EFG) and chemical shift (CS) tensors and to relate these observables to the structure around the chloride ions. Chlorine-35/37 NMR spectra of solid powdered samples of pseudopolymorphs (hydrates) of magnesium chloride (MgCl(2).6H(2)O), calcium chloride (CaCl(2).2H(2)O), strontium chloride (SrCl(2), SrCl(2).2H(2)O, and SrCl(2).6H(2)O), and barium chloride (BaCl(2).2H(2)O) have been acquired under stationary and magic-angle spinning conditions in magnetic fields of 11.75 and 21.1 T. Powder X-ray diffraction was used as an additional tool to confirm the purity and identity of the samples. Chlorine-35 quadrupolar coupling constants (C(Q)) range from essentially zero in cubic anhydrous SrCl(2) to 4.26+/-0.03 MHz in calcium chloride dihydrate. CS tensor spans, Omega, are between 40 and 72 ppm, for example, Omega= 45+/-20 ppm for SrCl(2).6H(2)O. Plane wave-pseudopotential density functional theory, as implemented in the CASTEP program, was employed to model the extended solid lattices of these materials for the calculation of their chlorine EFG and nuclear magnetic shielding tensors, and allowed for the assignment of the two-site chlorine NMR spectra of barium chloride dihydrate. This work builds upon our current understanding of the relationship between chlorine NMR interaction tensors and the local molecular and electronic structure, and highlights the particular sensitivity of quadrupolar nucleus solid-state NMR spectroscopy to the differences between various pseudopolymorphic structures in the case of strontium chloride.

Natural-abundance (43)Ca solid-state NMR spectroscopy at 21.1 T and gauge-including projector-augmented-wave (GIPAW) DFT calculations are developed as tools to provide insight into calcium binding environments, with special emphasis on the calcium chemical shift (CS) tensor. The first complete analysis of a (43)Ca solid-state NMR spectrum, including the relative orientation of the CS and electric field gradient (EFG) tensors, is reported for calcite. GIPAW calculations of the (43)Ca CS and EFG tensors for a series of small molecules are shown to reproduce experimental trends; for example, the trend in available solid-state chemical shifts is reproduced with a correlation coefficient of 0.983. The results strongly suggest the utility of the calcium CS tensor as a novel probe of calcium binding environments in a range of calcium-containing materials. For example, for three polymorphs of CaCO3 the CS tensor span ranges from 8 to 70 ppm and the symmetry around calcium is manifested differently in the CS tensor as compared with the EFG tensor. The advantages of characterizing the CS tensor are particularly evident in very high magnetic fields where the effect of calcium CS anisotropy is augmented in hertz while the effect of second-order quadrupolar broadening is often obscured for (43)Ca because of its small quadrupole moment. Finally, as an application of the combined experimental-theoretical approach, the solid-state structure of the vaterite polymorph of calcium carbonate is probed and we conclude that the hexagonal P6(3)/mmc space group provides a better representation of the structure than does the orthorhombic Pbnm space group, thereby demonstrating the utility of (43)Ca solid-state NMR as a complementary tool to X-ray crystallographic methods.