Isotope ratio mass spectrometers
The ratios of the stable carbon isotopes 13C and 12C as well as the stable nitrogen isotope 15N and 14N can give important information on the origin and biological context of a sample and are of high relevance in fields such as geochemistry, hydrology, paleoclimatology, and archaeology. Isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) determines small changes of these ratios with respect to a standard (δ13C and δ15N).
The Tandem Laboratory has three IRMS instruments and offers δ13C and δ15N measurements as stand-alone analysis or in combination with radiocarbon dating:
Our Horizon IRMS from Nu instruments is equipped with a 20-port manifold and dual inlet for offline measurement of δ13C.
δ13C and δ15N for all types of samples can be determined with our two precisION IRMS systems from Elementar. They are operated in continuous flow mode, and each coupled to an AGE 3 graphitisation system from Ionplus and an elemental analyzer (vario MICRO cube) from Elementar.
