Magnetic Resonance: From the Laboratory to Industrial Practice
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
Abstract
Magnetic Resonance Imaging is widely used in hospitals to image blood flow and the internal structure of the human body. Our work focuses on extending these magnetic resonance (MR) techniques to study chemical products and processes. Over the past 5 years we have established an internationally respected skill base in developing MR techniques to study transport in porous materials (e.g. oil flow in rocks), transport and reaction in 3-D systems (e.g. chemical conversion occurring inside catalytic reactors) and processing structure-function relationships (e.g. effect of extrusion processing on the structure and texture of food products). We believe that we now have the research base in place to make a step-change in exploiting MR in industrial practice. To achieve this, we wish to extend our research activities by (i) improving signal-to-noise ratios and speeding up data acquisition times such that we will be able to image hydrodynamics and chemical conversion over much shorter timescales than we can now; our target is to reduce data acquisition times by an order of magnitude; and (ii) developing robust methods for mapping pH, oxygen content, temperature and pressure, and constructing realistic process environments (e.g. elevated pressure and temperature) within the MR magnet. As well as being able to make new measurements under realistic process conditions, these data will also enable us to understand the microscopic physical and chemical processes occurring in these complex systems such that we can work with those developing numerical codes of chemical processes to improve and validate the scientific assumptions and models incorporated in their process design tools. Finally, in collaboration with experts in low-field MR hardware (which is cheap, compact and relatively maintenance free compared with high-field technology) we will bring together our advances in reduced data acquisitions times and signal enhancement with their magnet technology to demonstrate MR measurements in the industrial R&D laboratory and eventually on plant.
Organisations
Publications
Song K
(2009)
Magnetic resonance studies of hydration kinetics and microstructural evolution in plaster pastes
in Journal of Materials Science
Sankey M
(2009)
SPRITE MRI of bubbly flow in a horizontal pipe.
in Journal of magnetic resonance (San Diego, Calif. : 1997)
Youngs T
(2009)
Liquid Structure and Dynamics of Aqueous Isopropanol over ?-Alumina
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
VAN DE MEENT J
(2009)
Measurement of cytoplasmic streaming in single plant cells by magnetic resonance velocimetry
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Parrott E
(2009)
Extracting accurate optical parameters from glasses usingterahertz time-domain spectroscopy
in Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids
Shen Y
(2009)
Terahertz pulsed spectroscopic imaging using optimized binary masks
in Applied Physics Letters
Griffith J
(2009)
In situ monitoring of the microstructure of detergent drops during drying using a rapid nuclear magnetic resonance diffusion measurement
in Journal of Materials Science
Parasoglou P
(2009)
Quantitative single point imaging with compressed sensing.
in Journal of magnetic resonance (San Diego, Calif. : 1997)
Creber SA
(2009)
Quantification of the velocity acceleration factor for colloidal transport in porous media using NMR.
in Journal of colloid and interface science
Müller C
(2009)
Geometrical and hydrodynamical study of gas jets in packed and fluidized beds using magnetic resonance
in The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering
Parrott E
(2009)
The Use of Terahertz Spectroscopy as a Sensitive Probe in Discriminating the Electronic Properties of Structurally Similar Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
in Advanced Materials
Mitchell J
(2010)
Nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation and diffusion in the presence of internal gradients: the effect of magnetic field strength.
in Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics
Ding T
(2010)
Terahertz and far infrared spectroscopy of alanine-rich peptides having variable ellipticity.
in Optics express
Mantle M
(2010)
Pulsed-Field Gradient NMR Spectroscopic Studies of Alcohols in Supported Gold Catalysts
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Chen YY
(2010)
Quantitative ultra-fast MRI of HPMC swelling and dissolution.
in Journal of pharmaceutical sciences
Weber D
(2010)
Surface diffusion in porous catalysts.
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Tayler AB
(2010)
'Snap-shot' velocity vector mapping using echo-planar imaging.
in Journal of magnetic resonance (San Diego, Calif. : 1997)
Parrott E
(2010)
Atomic charge distribution in sodosilicate glasses from terahertz time-domain spectroscopy
in Physical Review B
Laity P
(2010)
Magnetic resonance imaging and X-ray microtomography studies of a gel-forming tablet formulation
in European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics
Gladden L
(2010)
MRI: Operando measurements of temperature, hydrodynamics and local reaction rate in a heterogeneous catalytic reactor
in Catalysis Today
Xiaoxia Yin
(2010)
Local Computed Tomography Using a THz Quantum Cascade Laser
in IEEE Sensors Journal
Holland D
(2010)
Reducing data acquisition times in phase-encoded velocity imaging using compressed sensing
in Journal of Magnetic Resonance
Pintelon TR
(2010)
Validation of 3D simulations of reverse osmosis membrane biofouling.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Beauregard DA
(2010)
Using non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess the reduction of Cr(VI) using a biofilm-palladium catalyst.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Description | This was a Platform Grant and therefore covered a wide range of method development in magnetic resonance in application to chemical engineering and the process industries. A large number of the projects initiated within this grant are now supported by industrial funding. Research methods which have been continued in such projects include undersampling methods in NMR such as compressed sensing and Bayesian methods; in situ/operando studies of catalysis; and new measurements capabilities at low field. Industrial collaborators include: Johnson Matthey, Shell, Schlumberger, BP and AstraZeneca. |
First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
Sector | Chemicals,Energy,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
Impact Types | Economic |
Title | Research data supporting "Retaining both discrete and smooth features in 1D and 2D NMR relaxation and diffusion experiments" |
Description | data used in associated publication |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Title | Research data supporting "Study of bubble dynamics in gas-solid fluidized beds using ultrashort echo time (UTE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)" |
Description | data associated with paper |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |