William Marsh Rice University

Xuebei Yang

Aydin Babakhani

Charles Chen

Payam Seifi

An Electron Paramagnetic resonance (EPR) system and method allows the measurement paramagnetic characteristics of materials in real-time, such as heavy oil, hydrocarbons, asphaltenes, heptane, vanadium, resins, drilling fluid, mud, wax deposits or the like. The EPR systems and methods discussed herein are low cost, small and light weight, making them usable in flow-assurance or logging applications. The EPR sensor is capable of measuring paramagnetic properties of materials from a distance of several inches. In some embodiments, a window will be used to separate the EPR sensor from the materials in a pipeline or wellbore. Since the sensor does need to be in direct contact with the materials, it can operate at a lower temperature or pressure. In other embodiments, the EPR sensor may be placed in the materials.

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) systems and methods for flow assurance and logging

An active cancellation system may be utilized to cancel interference, such as from transmitter leakage or self-interference in a transceiver of an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometer. The active cancellation system may be inserted between the transmitter and receiver. The active cancellation system may receive the output of the transmitter, and generate a cancellation signal with the same amplitude, but phase shifted relative to the self-interference signal. The cancellation system may include an attenuator/amplitude tuner, buffer, VQ generator, and phase shifter.

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) systems with active cancellation

EPR systems for flow assurance and logging

A method includes generating, from an integrated oscillator circuit, an oscillating output signal and generating, by an integrated power amplifier (PA) circuit, an amplified oscillating output signal based on the oscillating output signal. The method further includes receiving, by integrated receiver amplifier circuit, an electron spin resonance (ESR) signal from biological samples that include a magnetic species and generating, by the integrated receiver amplifier circuit, an amplified ESR signal based on the received ESR signal. The method further includes receiving, by the integrated receiver amplifier circuit, an electron spin resonance (ESR) signal from magnetic nanoparticles that are loaded with drugs or attached to human cells.

Electron spin resonance for medical imaging

An integrated electron spin resonance (ESR) circuit chip includes a chip substrate, a transmitter circuit, and a receiver circuit. The transmitter circuit and receiver circuit are disposed on the chip substrate. The transmitter circuit includes an oscillator circuit configured to generate an oscillating output signal and a power amplifier (PA) circuit configured to generate an amplified oscillating output signal based on the oscillating output signal. The receiver circuit receives an ESR signal from an ESR probe. The receiver circuit includes a receiver amplifier circuit configured to generate an amplified ESR signal based on the received ESR signal, a mixer circuit configured to receive the amplified ESR signal and to down-convert the amplified ESR signal to a baseband signal, and a baseband amplifier circuit configured to generate an amplified baseband signal based on the baseband signal.

Growing community of inventors

Houston, TX, United States of America

Xuebei Yang