Pore sizes and directionality in microcapillaries from angular double-pulsed-field-gradient NMR

• Double PFG (d-PFG) MR experiments performed on tilted microcapillaries are described.
• Simulations of the signal in double-PFG MR experiments for tilted compartments are presented.
• The fittings of the d-PFG MR data provide accurate estimate of pore size and pore direction simultaneously.
• This microstructural information can be obtained partially even for phantoms having more than a single pore size.

Angular double-pulsed-field gradient (d-PFG) MR methodology is increasingly used to non-invasively obtain pore sizes in opaque chemical and biological systems. In such MR experiments, the angular dependency of the signal at zero mixing time, through modeling, can be used to extract the pore size. In many systems not only the pore sizes but also their directions are of importance. Before applying d-PFG NMR to complex systems, it is of value to challenge the ability of the methodology to extract these microstructural parameters in samples where the ground truth is known. In the present study we explored whether modeling of the signal in angular d-PFG NMR experiments at zero mixing time, can simultaneously provide the size and the direction of tilted compartments with little prior knowledge. We showed that the angular d-PFG MR methodology enables simultaneous extraction of the pore size and the direction of mono-dispersed phantoms and of phantoms where the restricted compartments have different pore sizes. However, we found that in phantoms with two or more pore sizes, only averaged pore sizes were extracted for large azimuthal and polar angles.

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