Abstract
The state of water during the formation of xenon clathrates in water and aqueous tert-butanol solutions is studied by the method of NMR relaxation. Xenon crystal hydrates in liquid water are shown to present structured systems where the dispersed phase is represented by clathrate crystals dispersed in liquid water. Clathrate nonuniformities (with characteristic sizes on the order of several microns) are completely responsible for the relaxation of liquid water protons. The modifying effect of tert-butanol on the dispersions of xenon clathrates and the relaxation characteristics of water is discussed. The factors responsible for the disperse structure of the samples (inhomogeneous contribution to the relaxation rate) are analyzed and approaches to their estimation are singled out.