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Three‐Dimensional Nickel Ion Transport through Porous Media Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Author(s) -
Herrmann K.H.,
Pohlmeier A.,
Wiese S.,
Shah N. J.,
Nitzsche O.,
Vereecken H.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of environmental quality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1537-2537
pISSN - 0047-2425
DOI - 10.2134/jeq2002.5060
Subject(s) - porous medium , tracer , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , nuclear magnetic resonance , magnetic field , isotropy , relaxation (psychology) , flow (mathematics) , ion , porosity , temporal resolution , mechanics , optics , chemistry , composite material , physics , chromatography , psychology , social psychology , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , nuclear physics
The transport of Ni 2+ ions in a column, filled with porous media, was observed in three dimensions and time by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a clinical scanner. For porous media we used glass beads or quartz sand in a saturated continuous flow mode. The magnetic moment of Ni 2+ decreased the T 1 relaxation time of 1 H in aqueous solution. This concentration‐dependent effect was used by a fast low angle shot (FLASH) MRI sequence for imaging the concentration of the dissolved ions. Since Ni 2+ behaves as a conservative tracer under the chosen conditions, the tracer motion was representative for the water flow in the porous medium. Currently, we can achieve an isotropic spatial resolution of 1.5 mm and a temporal resolution of 170 s. The transport observation gives direct access to hydraulic flow properties of the porous media. The fluid flow velocity field was calculated by a fronttracking method and the statistical properties of the velocities were investigated. We also compared the experimental data with the three‐dimensional particle tracking model PARTRACE, which uses the experimental flow field as input.