The use of solid state NMR to monitor reactions and doping in inorganic materials

Solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a powerful probe of inorganic materials systems. Through carefully changing materials compositions and synthesis methods, the impact on the local structure can be investigated. These have been applied to three main materials sectors: Paramagnetic materials in NMR have traditionally suffered from poor resolution due to broadening experienced at the nuclei from localised unpaired electrons. In this work, a fast magic angle spinning (MAS) and low field approach has been applied to these paramagnetic cathode materials to improve this resolution, and elucidate structural information from the investigated materials. The resolution gained from these techniques has been used to highlight differences observed in the 7Li shifts of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) produced by different synthesis techniques. This was found to be related to the cell volume of the LiFePO4 phase. Furthermore, the investigation of V doped LFP by 7Li and 31P MAS NMR has resulted in the observation of many common impurities resulting from synthesis. Additionally, 31Presonances could be identified that were related to V near the phosphorus site, indicating successfully doping in some of the higher Li containing samples. Through 29Si and 17O MAS NMR, changes in the local structure between Ca and Zn doped Stöber nanoparticles are observed. Similarly to other Ca containing materials, incorporation of Ca into the Stöber network has been shown to disrupt Sibridging bonds promoting the formation of non-bridging bonds in the silica network. However, addition of Zn tells a different story. This is first observed in the static measurements, where incorporation of high amounts of Zn leads to no evidence of hydroxyls observed in the Stöber network. Whereas, high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations confirm the presence of crystalline Zn2SiO4 –II in the nanoparticles. Finally, activation of two series of synthetic sodium- and aluminium substituted calcium silicate hydrate (C-(N)-(A)-S-H) geopolymers are investigated. Increasing the CaO has been shown to increase the disorder of the silica network, and also to promote the increase of crystallinity of the systems through observation of calcium aluminate phases. Additionally, increasing the amount of aluminium relative to the silicon in the system, promotes more of these crystalline phases to form