Probing Multi-Component Systems in Porous Media Over a Hierarchy of Length-Scales

Understanding transport processes in porous media is central to the design and operation of many chemical and physical processes. Applications of two magnetic resonance techniques implemented to study the operation of fixed-bed catalytic reactors are reported here. First, gas and liquid velocity fields within a bead pack is reported, demonstrating that we can now image velocity fields within gas-liquid-solid reactors. In a separate experiment, T-1-T-2 correlations are shown to gain insight into liquid-surface interactions within catalyst pellets. The two-dimensional relaxation time correlation approach is then extended to the implementation of a chemical-shift (delta)-resolved T-2-T-1-delta correlation, which has initially been applied to the identification of oil and water fractions in a permeable rock.