Spectroscopic characterization of natural calcite minerals

The FT-IR, FT-Raman, NMR spectral data of ten different limestone samples have been compared. FT-IR and FT-Raman spectral data show that calcium carbonate in limestone, principally in the form of calcite, as identified by its main absorption bands at 1426, 1092, 876 and 712 cm−1. The sharp diffractions at the d-spacings, 3.0348, 1.9166 and 1.8796 confirm the presence of calcite structure and the calculated lattice parameters are: a = 4.9781 Å, c = 17.1188 Å. The range of 13C chemical shifts for different limestone samples is very small, varying from 198.38 to 198.42 ppm. The observed chemical shifts are consistent with the identical C–O bonding in different limestone samples. 27Al MAS NMR spectra of the samples exhibit a central line at 1 ppm and another line at 60 ppm corresponding to octahedral and tetrahedral Al ions, respectively. The five component resonances were observed in 29Si MAS NMR spectrum of limestone and these resonances were assigned to Si (4 Al), Si (3 Al), Si (2 Al), Si (1 Al) and Si (0 Al) from low field to high field.