A preliminary study of CT imaging of water in a carnation flower

We present the trial to determine the water deletion part in a carnation flower tissue while drying by neutron computer tomography (CT). The flower part was fixed on a rotating disk and thermal neutrons were irradiated for 4 s per projection. The total neutron dose was 6.0×108 n/cm2 per projection. The neutrons penetrating the sample were converted to photons by a fluorescence converter. The photon image was guided to a cooled CCD camera using two mirrors. The sample was rotated, stepwise, every 1°, up to 180°, i.e. 180 images were obtained for the CT construction. Horizontal CT images of several slices of the flower were taken before and after the drying treatment. Vertical CT images of the flower were also constructed based on horizontal CT images. It was found that the water around the ovule was selectively removed by the drying treatment.