The use of agar gel as a basic reference material for calibrating relaxation times and imaging parameters

The relaxation properties of agar gels render it a potentially useful basic reference material for calibrating the NMR equipment. The T1 and T2 values are close to the values observed for most biological tissues; they are stable and can be varied by controlling the concentration of MnCl2. The temperature, concentration, and volume dependence of T1 and T2 were studied.