Patent ID: 7550971

Claim:
An in vitro method of determining an analyte concentration of a sample, the method comprising the acts of: placing the sample into a low-field, bench-top time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) spectrometer, the NMR spectrometer being tuned to measure a selected type of atom; applying a magnetic field to the sample using a fixed, permanent magnet; applying at least one 90 degree radio-frequency pulse to the sample, the radio-frequency pulse being generally perpendicular to the magnetic field; removing the 90 degree radio-frequency pulse from the sample so as to produce a decaying NMR signal; measuring the decaying NMR signal at a plurality of times while applying a plurality of 180 degree refocusing radio-frequency pulses to the sample; and calculating the analyte concentration from the plurality of measurements associated with the decaying NMR signal and a selected model.