Pore characterisation by NMR

The authors report a method that employs nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to characterise porous media reliability, rapidly, directly and non-destructively. The method is suitable for pore sizes in the range 1 to 100 nm. Traditional methods involve gas adsorption/desorption or mercury intrusion porosimetry. These methods are time-consuming and require elaborate procedures and the latter method is thought to damage delicate pore structures. NMR methods employing relaxation time measurement are well established and although rapid they rely on knowledge of surface relaxation interactions which can vary widely from sample to sample. The method described employs the depression of the melting point (ΔTm) that occurs for a liquid confined within narrow pores