KEY POINTS:
When Massey University physicist Robin Dykstra first visited Antarctica in 1997, scientists were carting whole ice samples back to a lab for analysis.
But samples would degrade as soon as they were taken out of the ice, affecting the accuracy of the research.
Since laboratory machines were big to cart to Antarctica, he and colleagues set about creating more compact machines they could take out into the field.
Tomorrow he will be conferred with his PhD for research on portable nuclear magnetic resonance devices.
Dr Dykstra's earliest efforts saw the creation of portable NMRs for assessing the sea ice in Antarctica. That led to other machines, now sold around the world, with uses ranging from construction to the oil industry.
"The Antarctic work we've been doing really was the motivation for carrying on and developing instruments in the first place."
The atoms in an object placed in a NMR machine's magnetic field resonate at a given frequency. By firing a radio wave into the atom, scientists can determine much about the sample by studying the wave that bounces back from the object.
NMR machines in research laboratories are cumbersome, requiring large magnets and coils to generate a magnetic field, whereas the portable versions use the Earth's magnetic field to act as a magnet.
Dr Dykstra said the technology has long been available, but the machines have been difficult to transport.
"In the past we would take ice cores and put them into the machine. We still had equipment in Antarctica but it was very cumbersome and very, very crude.
"We were very limited on what we could do in terms of research. We were actually just limited to setting up in one place and doing work there."
He returned to the Antarctic as part of the New Zealand Antarctic programme last October, and was able to use portable NMR machines to assess the structure of sea ice.
"When sea water freezes you get solid ice and little pockets of concentrated brine distributed within it. We wanted to look at how much liquid there is and how it is moving. That can tell us about the thermal properties of the sea ice."
Dr Dykstra, Professor Paul Callaghan of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology, Mark Hunter of Victoria University and Dr Craig Eccles of Magritek developed the portable and laptop NMR machines.
Magritek, which commercialised the invention, was awarded the Emerging Gold Award at the Wellington Gold Business Awards last week.
Test case
* Nuclear magnetic resonance analyses objects without destroying them.
* Potential uses for the portable NMRs include measuring the moisture content of packaged foods to test quality and freshness, and determining the moisture content of drying concrete and wood.
