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US 8,912,795 B2Granted
Nuclear magnetic resonance scanning of metal containers using medium-field technology
AssigneeWine Scanner, Inc.
InventorsJoseph S. Broz, Stephen W. Surko
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus are provided for medium-field NMR scanning of liquids that is capable of discriminating benign liquids such as lotions, drinks, and pharmaceutical liquids from threat liquids such as components of home-made explosives.
Claims20
A method for analyzing the contents of a liquid in a non-ferrous metal container, said method comprising:
- a. providing an NMR spectrometer and an NMR probe configured to accept at least a portion of the container, wherein said metal container has a wall thickness up to about 3.5 inches (poor conductor lead, nickel-chromium) good conductor would be max 250 microns, silver, gold, aluminum, copper;
- b. positioning the container or a liquid-containing portion of the container within a data collection region of the NMR probe;
- c. establishing a homogeneous static medium-strength magnetic field across the data collection region;
- d. applying a radio frequency to said container high enough to obtain a spectrum that provides sufficient information to analyze the contents of the container, but low enough to provide sufficient penetration into the metal container to create magnetic resonance in the contents of the container;
- e. collecting NMR data and generating a Fourier-transformed NMR spectrum;
- and
- f. analyzing one or more peaks in the NMR spectrum, thereby analyzing one or more contents of the container.
4 more elements
A method for analyzing the contents of a liquid in a non-ferrous metal container, said method comprising:
- a. providing an NMR spectrometer and an NMR probe configured to accept at least a portion of the container, wherein said container is a sealed container;
- b. positioning the container or a liquid-containing portion of the container within a data collection region of the NMR probe;
- c. establishing a homogeneous static medium-strength magnetic field across the data collection region;
- d. applying a radio frequency to said container high enough to obtain a spectrum that provides sufficient information to analyze the contents of the container, but low enough to provide sufficient penetration into the metal container to create magnetic resonance in the contents of the container;
- e. collecting NMR data and generating a Fourier-transformed NMR spectrum;
- and
- f. analyzing one or more peaks in the NMR spectrum, thereby analyzing one or more contents of the container.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.