NMR imaging of falling water drops

The falling water drop is a simple model for studying phenomena related to chemical extraction, where two immiscible phases are dynamically blended to promote the transport of solute molecules from one phase to the other. Convective motion inside the drop significantly influences the extraction efficiency. Whereas optical and tracer methods are model bound or invasive, NMR imaging is noninvasive, direct, and applicable to nontransparent media. The first NMR measurements of a water drop falling through air are reported. It is shown that, in drops from pure water, large-scale convection rolls are observed in contrast to drops with the surface tension lowered by surfactants.