Technical note: Temperature and concentration dependence of water diffusion in polyvinylpyrrolidone solutions

The goal of this work is to provide temperature and concentration calibration of water diffusivity in polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) solutions used in phantoms to assess system bias and linearity in apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements.

ADC measurements were performed for 40 kDa (K40) PVP of six concentrations (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% by weight) at three temperatures (19.5°C, 22.5°C, and 26.4°C), with internal phantom temperature monitored by optical thermometer (±0.2°C). To achieve ADC measurement and fit accuracy of better than 0.5%, three orthogonal diffusion gradients were calibrated using known water diffusivity at 0°C and system gradient nonlinearity maps. Noise-floor fit bias was also controlled by limiting the maximum b-value used for ADC calculation of each sample. The ADC temperature dependence was modeled by Arrhenius functions of each PVP concentration. The concentration dependence was modeled by quadratic function for ADC normalized by the theoretical water diffusion values. Calibration coefficients were obtained from linear regression model fits.

Measured phantom ADC values increased with temperature and decreasing PVP concentration, [PVP]. The derived Arrhenius model parameters for [PVP] between 0% and 50%, are reported and can be used for K40 ADC temperature calibration with absolute ADC error within ±0.016 μm² /ms. Arrhenius model fit parameters normalized to water value scaled with [PVP] between 10% and 40%, and proportional change in activation energy increased faster than collision frequency. ADC normalization by water diffusivity, D_W , from the Speedy-Angell relation accounted for the bulk of temperature dependence (±0.035 μm² /ms) and yielded quadratic calibration for ADC_PVP /D_W  = (12.5 ± 0.7) ·10^-5 ·[PVP]² - (23.2 ± 0.3)·10^-3 ·[PVP]+1, nearly independent of PVP molecular weight and temperature.

The study provides ground-truth ADC values for K40 PVP solutions commonly used in diffusion phantoms for scanning at ambient room temperature. The described procedures and the reported calibration can be used for quality control and standardization of measured ADC values of PVP at different concentrations and temperatures.