Alkaline earth chloride hydrates: chlorine quadrupolar and chemical shift tensors by solid-state NMR spectroscopy and plane wave pseudopotential calculations

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.