A quantitative study of water proton relaxation in packed beds of porous particles with varying water content.

A quantitative analysis of the dependence of water proton relaxation on water content in randomly packed beds of Sephadex is undertaken. A combination of Osmotic and Capillary theory is used to describe the morphological changes occurring in the packed beds as the water content is lowered. At each water content the water proton relaxation is calculated using a "proton exchange-diffusion" model which takes into account fast chemical exchange between water and dextran hydroxyl protons and the diffusion of water molecules between the water compartments inside and outside the Sephadex beads. The relaxation time distribution are shown to provide a sensitive probe of the air-water distribution in the bed and of the shrinkage of the Sephadex beads at lower water contents. The theoretical models provide an accurate, quantitative description of the relaxation behavior except for the largest beads at high water contents when there is slow diffusion between the water compartments. In this case, a more realistic three-dimensional description of the air-water distribution in a randomly packed bed is required.