Search results for "Field cycling"

Nature of Interactions at the Interface of Two Water-Saturated Commercial TiO2 Polymorphs

2013

Two commercial TiO2 samples, a 100% anatase and a 100% rutile, were used for the fast field cycling NMR experiments. The results showed a different behavior between the different samples. In particular, water molecules were unbonded to the solid surface for the rutile sample, whereas they appeared to chemically interact with the surface through H-bond formation with the anatase sample. The above findings accord with the generally lower activity of rutile with respect to anatase reported in literature for photocatalytic oxidation reactions in water. The difficulty of water to interact with rutile surface, indeed, could hinder the formation of OH radicals, which are the most important oxidant…

Mechanisms of Organic Coating on the Surface of a Poplar Biochar

2017

Background: Recent studies highlighted that biochar efficiency to improve soil fertility is enhanced after it is blended with fresh organic materials. It was suggested that organic coating of inner-porous biochar surfaces acts as a kind of “glue” for plant-nutrients, thereby allowing their slow release towards plant-roots and/or microorganisms. Objective: The aim of the present study is to improve the understanding of the nature of the interactions between fresh organic matter and a poplar biochar. Method: Two fluorinated organic models were used as target molecules in order to apply heteronuclear (i.e. 19F) fast field cycling (FFC) NMR relaxometry. Results: The results suggest that organic…

An automatic L1-based regularization method for the analysis of FFC dispersion profiles with quadrupolar peaks

2023

Fast Field-Cycling Nuclear Magnetic Resonance relaxometry is a non-destructive technique to investigate molecular dynamics and structure of systems having a wide range of ap- plications such as environment, biology, and food. Besides a considerable amount of liter- ature about modeling and application of such technique in specific areas, an algorithmic approach to the related parameter identification problem is still lacking. We believe that a robust algorithmic approach will allow a unified treatment of different samples in several application areas. In this paper, we model the parameters identification problem as a con- strained L 1 -regularized non-linear least squares problem. Following…

Applications of fast field cycling NMR relaxometry

2021

Abstract Fast field cycling (FFC) NMR relaxometry is emerging as a powerful tool to investigate physical chemistry properties of many systems in a number of different scientific fields. As an example, it is used to investigate environmental issues such as soil erosion, water, and nutrient dynamics in environmentally relevant porous systems, to discriminate among different kinds of foodstuff in order to understand possible source of adulteration and fraud, to evaluate the properties of new materials, and much more. In the present study, an overview about the possible applications of FFC NMR relaxometry is given. The paper is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, it is thought to provide an …

Dissolution mechanism of crystalline cellulose in H3PO4 as assessed by high-field NMR spectroscopy and Fast Field Cycling NMR relaxometry

2009

Many processes have been proposed to produce glucose as a substrate for bacterial fermentation to obtain bioethanol. Among others, cellulose degradation appears as the most convenient way to achieve reliable amounts of glucose units. In fact, cellulose is the most widespread biopolymer, and it is considered also as a renewable resource. Due to extended intra- and interchain hydrogen bonds that provide a very efficient packing structure, however, cellulose is also a very stable polymer, the degradation of which is not easily achievable. In the past decade, researchers enhanced cellulose reactivity by increasing its solubility in many solvents, among which concentrated phosphoric acid (H(3)PO…

Mechanisms of Water Interaction with Pore Systems of Hydrochar and Pyrochar from Poplar Forestry Waste

2014

The aim of this study was to understand the water-surface interactions of two chars obtained by gasification (pyrochar) and hydrothermal carbonization (hydrochar) of a poplar biomass. The two samples revealed different chemical compositions as evidenced by solid state (13)C NMR spectroscopy. In fact, hydrochar resulted in a lignin-like material still containing oxygenated functionalities. Pyrochar was a polyaromatic system in which no heteronuclei were detected. After saturation with water, hydrochar and pyrochar were analyzed by fast field cycling (FFC) NMR relaxometry. Results showed that water movement in hydrochar was mainly confined in very small pores. Conversely, water movement in py…

Nature of water-biochar interface interactions

2012

A poplar biochar obtained by an industrial gasification process was saturated with water and analyzed using fast field cycling (FFC) NMR relaxometry in a temperature range between 299 and 353 K. Results revealed that the longitudinal relaxation rate increased with the increment of the temperature. This behavior was consistent with that already observed for paramagnetic inorganic porous media for which two different relaxation mechanisms can be accounted for: outer- and inner-sphere mechanisms. The former is due to water diffusing from the closest approach distance to infinity, whereas the second is due to water interacting by nonconventional H-bonds to the porous surface of the solid materi…

Heuristic Algorithm for the Analysis of Fast Field Cycling (FFC) NMR Dispersion Curves

2021

Evaluation of nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion (NMRD) curves obtained by the fast field cycling nuclear magnetic resonance (FFC-NMR) relaxometry technique is a valuable tool for analyzing the microscopic dynamics of condensed matter systems. However, quantitative data analysis involves several conceptual and practical issues. Moving forward from previous literature approaches, we propose a new analysis method, relying on the elaboration of the inverse integral transform of the NMRD curve. Our approach results in a true heuristic method, able to unambiguously individuate the dynamic domains in the system, thereby avoiding the possible introduction of any element of discretion. The anal…

Soil-Water Interactions Unveiled by Fast Field Cycling NMR Relaxometry

2017

Assessing hydrological connectivity inside a soil by fast-field-cycling nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry and its link to sediment delivery proc…

2017

Connectivity is a general concept used to represent the processes involving a transfer of matter among the elements of an environmental system. The expression “hydrological connectivity inside the soil” has been used here to indicate how spatial patterns inside the soil (i.e., the structural connectivity) interact with physical and chemical processes (i.e., the functional connectivity) in order to determine the subsurface flow (i.e., the water transfer), thereby explaining how sediment transport due to surface runoff (i.e., the soil particle transfer) can be affected. This paper explores the hydrological connectivity inside the soil (HCS) and its link to sediment delivery processes at the p…