Analysis of porous media and objects of cultural heritage by mobile NMR

Low-field NMR techniques are used to study porous system, from simple to complex structures, and objects of cultural heritage. It is shown that NMR relaxometry can be used to study the fluid dynamics inside a porous system. A simple theoretical model for multi-site relaxation exchange NMR is used to extract exchange kinetic parameters when applied on a model porous systems. It provides a first step towards the study of more complex systems, where continuous relaxation distributions are present, such as soil systems or building materials. Moisture migration is observed in the soil systems with the help of 1D and 2D NMR relaxometry methods. In case of the concrete samples, the difference in composition makes a significant difference in the ability of water uptake. The single-sided NMR sensor proves to be a useful tool for on-site measurements. This is very important also in the case of the cultural heritage objects, as most of the objects can not be moved out of their environment. Mobile NMR turns out to be a simple but reliable and powerful tool to investigate moisture distributions and pore structures in porous media as well as the conservation state and history of objects of cultural heritage.