Magnetic resonance Imaging of catalysts and catalytic processes

Magnetic resonance (MR), in the form of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, is well established as a research tool for investigations of the structures of solid catalysts and molecular species adsorbed on them. However, during the past decade there has been increasing interest in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to study, in particular, flow fields inside reactors. These studies have recently been extended to measurements of chemical conversion within model reactor systems. The real power of MR techniques is that by bringing together spectroscopy, diffusion, micro-imaging, and flow imaging, they provide a non-invasive, chemically specific measurement technique which can characterize a system over length scales ranging from the angstrom- to the centimeter scale. In this review, recent developments in MRI pulse sequences are summarized and applications to investigations of both hydrodynamics and catalytic conversion within catalysts and catalytic reactors are presented.