Magnetic Resonance: From the Laboratory to Industrial Practice

磁共振成像在医院中被广泛应用于对血流和人体内部结构进行成像。我们的工作重点是将这些磁共振(MR)技术扩展到研究化学产品和工艺。在过去的5年里，我们在开发磁共振技术方面建立了国际公认的技术基础，以研究多孔材料中的传输(例如岩石中的石油流动)、3D系统中的传输和反应(例如在催化反应器中发生的化学转化)以及加工结构与功能的关系(例如挤压加工对食品结构和质地的影响)。我们相信，我们现在已经有了研究基础，可以在工业实践中利用MR进行一步一步的改变。为了实现这一目标，我们希望通过以下方式扩大我们的研究活动：(I)提高信噪比并加快数据采集时间，以便我们能够在比现在更短的时间尺度上成像流体动力学和化学转化；我们的目标是将数据采集时间减少一个数量级；以及(Ii)开发可靠的方法来绘制pH、氧含量、温度和压力，并在MR磁体中构建真实的过程环境(例如，升高的压力和温度)。除了能够在现实的工艺条件下进行新的测量外，这些数据还将使我们能够了解这些复杂系统中发生的微观物理和化学过程，以便我们能够与那些开发化学过程数字代码的人合作，改进和验证他们的过程设计工具中包含的科学假设和模型。最后，通过与低场MR硬件(与高场技术相比，低场MR硬件更便宜、更紧凑且相对免维护)专家的合作，我们将把我们在减少数据采集时间和信号增强方面的进步与他们的磁铁技术结合在一起，在工业研发实验室并最终在工厂中演示MR测量。

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.