The nuclear magnetic resonance line shapes of Xe in the cages of clathrate hydrates

We report, for the first time, a prediction of the line shapes that would be observed in the (129)Xe nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum of xenon in the cages of clathrate hydrates. We use the dimer tensor model to represent pairwise contributions to the intermolecular magnetic shielding tensor for Xe at a specific location in a clathrate cage. The individual tensor components from quantum mechanical calculations in clathrate hydrate structure I are represented by contributions from parallel and perpendicular tensor components of Xe-O and Xe-H dimers. Subsequently these dimer tensor components are used to reconstruct the full magnetic shielding tensor for Xe at an arbitrary location in a clathrate cage. The reconstructed tensors are employed in canonical Monte Carlo simulations to find the Xe shielding tensor component along a particular magnetic field direction. The shielding tensor component weighted according to the probability of finding a crystal fragment oriented along this direction in a polycrystalline sample leads to a predicted line shape. Using the same set of Xe-O and Xe-H shielding functions and the same Xe-O and Xe-H potential functions we calculate the Xe NMR spectra of Xe atom in 12 distinct cage types in clathrate hydrates structures I, II, H, and bromine hydrate. Agreement with experimental spectra in terms of the number of unique tensor components and their relative magnitudes is excellent. Agreement with absolute magnitudes of chemical shifts relative to free Xe atom is very good. We predict the Xe line shapes in two cages in which Xe has not yet been observed.