In Situ Monitoring of Diffusion of Guest Molecules in Porous Media Using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Imaging

A method is demonstrated to monitor macroscopic translational diffusion using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) imaging. A host-guest system with nitroxide spin probe 3-(2-Iodoacetamido)-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-1-pyrrolidinyloxy (IPSL) as a guest inside the periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) aerogel UKON1-GEL as a host and ethanol as a solvent is used as an example to describe the protocol. Data is shown from a previous publication, where the protocol has been applied to both IPSL and Tris(8-carboxy-2,2,6,6-perdeutero-tetramethyl-benzo[1,2-d: 4,5-d'] bis(1,3)dithiole) methyl (Trityl) as guest molecules and UKON1-GEL and SILICA-GEL as host systems. A method is shown to prepare aerogel samples that cannot be synthesized directly in the sample tube for measurement due to a size change during synthesis. The aerogel is attached to sample tubes using heat shrink tubing and a pressure cooker to reach the necessary temperature without evaporating the solvent in the process. The method does not assume a clearly defined initial distribution of guest molecules at the start of the measurement. Instead, it requires a reservoir on top of the aerogel and experimentally determines the influx rate during data analysis. The diffusion is monitored continually over a period of 20 hr by recording the 1d spin density profile within the sample. The spectrometer settings for the imaging experiment are described quantitatively. Data analysis software is provided to take the resonator sensitivity profile into account and to numerically solve the diffusion equation. The software determines the macroscopic translational diffusion coefficient by least square minimization of the difference between the experiment and the numerical solution of the diffusion equation.