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On the interference of Kr during carbon isotope analysis of methane using continuous-flow combustion–isotope ratio mass spectrometry
oleh: J. Schmitt, B. Seth, M. Bock, C. van der Veen, L. Möller, C. J. Sapart, M. Prokopiou, T. Sowers, T. Röckmann, H. Fischer
| Format: | Article |
|---|---|
| Diterbitkan: | Copernicus Publications 2013-05-01 |
Deskripsi
Stable carbon isotope analysis of methane (δ<sup>13</sup>C of CH<sub>4</sub>) on atmospheric samples is one key method to constrain the current and past atmospheric CH<sub>4</sub> budget. A frequently applied measurement technique is gas chromatography (GC) isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) coupled to a combustion-preconcentration unit. This report shows that the atmospheric trace gas krypton (Kr) can severely interfere during the mass spectrometric measurement, leading to significant biases in δ<sup>13</sup>C of CH<sub>4</sub>, if krypton is not sufficiently separated during the analysis. According to our experiments, the krypton interference is likely composed of two individual effects, with the lateral tailing of the doubly charged <sup>86</sup>Kr peak affecting the neighbouring <i>m/z</i> 44 and partially the <i>m/z</i> 45 Faraday cups. Additionally, a broad signal affecting <i>m/z</i> 45 and especially <i>m/z</i> 46 is assumed to result from scattered ions of singly charged krypton. The introduced bias in the measured isotope ratios is dependent on the chromatographic separation, the krypton-to-CH<sub>4</sub> mixing ratio in the sample, the focusing of the mass spectrometer as well as the detector configuration and can amount to up to several per mil in δ<sup>13</sup>C. Apart from technical solutions to avoid this interference, we present correction routines to a posteriori remove the bias.