Magnetic Resonance imaging in agriculture and industry
Test with cytric fruits in MR device.
Source: Embrapa
Many researches have been realized with the support of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) application in various areas. In Soil Science, the NMR is mainly used in researches that involves the dynamics of soil organic matter. The NMR provides information about the relative number of carbon (C) atoms in different chemical environment. The NMR analysis are directly made in humus or soil samples, without the need of extracting organic matter of the soil sample, for example, so that the sample changes, due to the extraction procedures are avoided.
Although the soil analysis through the NMR technique are very important in pedogenesis, fertility and chemical studies of soil, and soil management and conservation, etc.; the analysis effective cost is very high, besides being used in few laboratories. All this, due to the required equipment to the analysis still be very expensive. An alternative to this problem may have arisen from a debate promoted by researchers of the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária - Embrapa (Brazilian Company of Farming Research) on 05/24/2018 at Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz Queiroz – Esalq/USP (Luiz Queiroz College of Agriculture), about how NMR is being used in industry, agriculture and food.
The researcher of Embrapa Instrumentação (Embrapa Instrumentation, São Carlos/SP), Luiz Alberto Colnago, presented the utilization of the low field magnetic resonance, which is about ten times cheaper than the resonance that have being used for more than 50 years to determine the chemical structure of active principle of agrochemicals. The propose is that big and expensive equipment can be substituted by smaller and cheaper equipment.
The low field magnetic resonance does not generate images. It measures, in this case, the disappearing time of the resonance signal. The signal is compared with the database by statistics programs that can transform this information into the chemical composition of agro-food compounds, for example.
The equipment and methods of Embrapa Instrumentation are still on test phase, but has aroused great interest by providing quick and accurate analysis.
The application of this technique in areas, such as Soil Science, also has been receiving prominence, mainly in obtaining data on soil hydraulic properties, and promises great results.
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