Application of NMR microimaging by radio-frequency field gradients to the observation of solvent penetration in polymeric materials

A recently developed NMR microscopy technique based on radio-frequency field gradients is employed to study the penetration of toluene in poly(vinyl chloride), of acetic acid in cellulose, and of n-pentane in polystyrene. In spite of broad NMR lines in the two latter cases, good-quality images are still obtained. This is made possible by the inherent features of the proposed imaging technique, which does not need any spin echo or gradient echo and therefore does not suffer from the strong attenuation due to short transverse relaxation times