Abstract: Calcium carbonate has three different crystal forms, such as calcite, aragonite and vaterite. Calcite is the most common form of native calcium carbonate known and is one of the stable forms of carbonate on the earth's surface also. Authors have been summarized the research progress on heavy metals partitioning in carbonate calcium formation. The review is divided two parts. The topic for the part 1 is theoretic background and experimental methods. The topic for the part 2 is research progress and partitioning mechanism. Here is the part 1. In this paper,the equations for calculating partitioning coefficient of heavy metal ions were propo-sed. The growth conditions and synthetic methods for calcite, aragonite and vaterite and its solid solution have been evaluated. The analytical methods for trace elements were summarized. The partitioning behaviors of heavy metal ions were discussed. The experimental results shown that: the presence of Mg2+ inhibits vaterite formation;the presence of Sr2+ favors aragonite formation;F- inhibits adsorption of Mg2+ ions on calcite surface;the Sr2+ distribution coefficients increases with increasing precipitation rate, while for Co2+, Mn2+, Cd2+, the distribution coefficients decrease with increasing precipitation rate.