Effects of hydrophobic treatments of stone on pore water studied by continuous distribution analysis of NMR relaxation times

The effects of protective hydrophobic products applied to porous media such as stone or mortar vary greatly with the product, the porous medium, and the mode of application. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) measurements on fluids in the pore spaces of both treated and untreated samples can give information on the contact of the fluid with the internal surfaces, which is affected by all the above factors. Continuous distributions of relaxation times T-1 and T-2 of water in the pores of both synthetic and natural porous media were obtained before and after hydrophobic treatment. The synthetic porous media are ceramic filter materials characterized by narrow distributions of pore dimensions and show that the treatment does not produce large changes in the relaxation times of the water. For three travertine samples most of a long relaxation time component, presumably from the largest pores, remains after treatment, while the amplitude of an intermediate component is greatly reduced. For three pudding-stone samples, treatment leads to a substantial loss from the long component and an even greater loss from the intermediate component. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.