Huseyin Kara1, 2, Nicholas N. Kuzma2, Philip Manasseh3, Mehrdad Pourfathi2, Stephen J. Kadlecek2, Rahim R. Rizi2
1Astronomy and Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 2Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 3Department of Chemistry, Earlham College, Richmond, IN, United States
In light of 3He shortages, Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) offers a promising alternative method of producing bulk quantities of hyperpolarized 129Xe for human lung imaging. We studied T1 spin relaxation of 129Xe in typical DNP mixtures (xenon/1-propanol/trytil radical) at 1.43 K and 5 T. Specifics of sample preparation as well as thermal history are shown to promote spontaneous creation of pure xenon clusters in the solid matrix, leading to a wide range (100 min - 35 hours) of 129Xe T1 values.