Calcium-43 chemical shift tensors as probes of calcium binding environments.: Insight into the structure of the vaterite CaCO3 polymorph by 43Ca solid-state NMR spectroscopy

Natural-abundance Ca-43 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 Ca-43 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 Ca-43 CS and EFG tensors for a series of small molecules are shown to reproduce experimental trends; for example, the trend in available solidstate 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 Ca-43 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 Ca-43 solid-state NMR as a complementary tool to X-ray crystallographic methods.