InterPore2025

Fluid transfers through dynamic NMR relaxometry

20 May 2025, 14:35

15m

Oral Presentation (MS10) Advances in imaging porous media: techniques, software and case studies MS10

Speaker

Mr Benjamin Maillet (Laboratoire Navier, Université Gustave Eiffel)

Description

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) relaxometry and Magnetic resonance Imagery (MRI) are well-established powerful tools for probing behavior of states of liquid in porous media. For years, the Navier laboratory has developed an innovative methodology to follow water transfer in porous media by this non-invasive and time resolved approach: dynamic NMR relaxometry (fig. (a), [1]), based on the fast exchange concept (fig. (b)) which distinguishes bulk and surface water at the pore scale. A full description of water transfer, such as drying of model nanoporous media like saturated Vycor [2] or biobased material as green wood [3] is facilitated by combining analyses of the evolution of the probability density function of the NMR relaxation time with profile of water content (1D MRI).
More recently, this approach has been generalized to investigate liquid transfer in smoother material, such as clay paste or colloidal gel [4]. Once again, the fast exchange model provides a framework for translating NMR and MRI observable into key parameters evolution of porous and complex media, such as saturation, drying rate, volume fraction of paste or gel, effective pore size, specific “wet” surface or thickness of water film. This methodology enables the study of various drying regimes (shrinkage, desaturation, film formation…) independently, despite the complexities of medium deformations that may occur during liquid transfer.