Relaxation-time parameter image

The identification of material heterogeneities based on differences in molecular motion is an important feature of NMR imaging. The importance of slow molecular motion for image contrast is demonstrated in Figure 31 with relaxation time parameter images through a partially aged sheet of carbon-black-filled styrene-co-butadiene rubber (SBR) (147). 

The combination of microscopic and macroscopic information is made possible by what can be called parameter imaging . In the general sense, it consists of the encoding of properties such as spectral line shifts, relaxation times, diffusion coefficients, etc., in the image by suitable combination of corresponding modules into one pulse sequence. Parameter images are to be distinguished from mere... 

Chamuleau RA, Creyghton JH, De Nie I, et al. 1988. Is the magnetic resonance imaging proton spin-lattice relaxation time a reliable noninvasive parameter of developing liver fibrosis. Hepatology 8 217-221. 

This method however assumes that a static calibration is sufficient for a dynamic sample. It corresponds that a PEM sample in a fuel cell has well defined and fixed relaxation times. If the PEM however is truly dynamic and undergoes microstructural variation or other evolution then the relaxation times will change and the image will change even though the water content is not changing. For more reliable approach, it is feasible to use mapping of relaxation parameters in the PEM, because relaxation parameters such as T1 and T2 also depends on water contents as performed by Balcom et al.15... 

From a fit of Equation (10) to spatially resolved relaxation curves, images of the parameters A, B, T2, q M2 have been obtained [3- - 32]. Here A/(A + B) can be interpreted as the concentration of cross-links and B/(A + B) as the concentration of dangling chains. In addition to A/(A + B) also q M2 is related to the cross-link density in this model. In practice also T2 has been found to depend on cross-link density and subsequently strain, an effect which has been exploited in calibration of the image in Figure 7.6. Interestingly, carbon-black as an active filler has little effect on the relaxation times, but silicate filler has. Consequently the chemical cross-link density of carbon-black filled elastomers can be determined by NMR. The apparent insensitivity of NMR to the interaction of the network chains with carbon black filler particles is explained with paramagnetic impurities of carbon black, which lead to rapid relaxation of the NMR signal in the vicinity of the filler particles. 

The NMR-MOUSE is a portable NMR sensor which works in highly inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Because of field inhomogeneity NMR spectroscopy of the chemical shift is not readily possible, but relaxation times and parameters of translational motion can be measured by echo techniques. These are the most important NMR parameters which are exploited for contrast in imaging. Unless fluids are investigated field inhomogeneities are essentially no obstacle for relaxation analysis [80], because molecular motion by translational diffusion is absent. 

It is difficult to make an exhaustive list of the applications of quantitative imaging, because a large number of parameters are quantifiable proton density, relaxation time T, T2, T2 or T 2, T p), data qualifying interaction of pools by magnetization transfer, apparent diffusion coefficients, indices characterizing diffusion phenomena from tensor estimation or a (/-space approach, temperature difference, static magnetic field, B1 field amplitude, current density or values related to dynamic MRI contrast agent uptake. 

---