Development of a Combustion System for Liquid or Gas Samples

Abstract

While it is customary to use solid samples for measuring the 14C/12C ratio, it is sometimes necessary to handle liquid or gas samples. Motivated by a scientific purpose to count radiocarbon yields in deuterated acetone irradiated with energetic neutrons, we developed a new combustion system to treat liquid or gas samples. In contrast with the typical combustion system using CuO for solid samples, the new combustion system uses high-purity O2 (99.999%) gas. As an initial investigation, we combusted deuterated acetone (acetone-d6, certified 100.0 atm % D) to make CO2 under the ambient O2 pressure. The resulting CO2 gas then went through the reduction process to form graphite for further accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurement.

Atomic spectrometry update. Atomic mass spectrometry

“…Several new graphitization lines have been reported. In contrast to typical systems which use copper oxide in the combustion of solid samples, the system of Park and Lee 77 used high-purity O 2 for combustion of liquid (30-40 ml) or gaseous samples. Measures taken to ensure safety in the use of highly reactive O 2 gas included maintaining a low system pressure (1 bar) and using 20-25 cm long quartz reaction tubes when treating larger quantities of samples.…”