Quantitative Determination of Isotope Ratios from Experimental Isotopic Distributions
Citations Over Time
Abstract
Isotope variability due to natural processes provides important information for studying a variety of complex natural phenomena from the origins of a particular sample to the traces of biochemical reaction mechanisms. These measurements require high-precision determination of isotope ratios of a particular element involved. Isotope ratio mass spectrometers (IRMS) are widely employed tools for such a high-precision analysis, which have some limitations. This work aims at overcoming the limitations inherent to IRMS by estimating the elemental isotopic abundance from the experimental isotopic distribution. In particular, a computational method has been derived that allows the calculation of 13C/12C ratios from the whole isotopic distributions, given certain caveats, and these calculations are applied to several cases to demonstrate their utility. The limitations of the method in terms of the required number of ions and S/N ratio are discussed. For high-precision estimates of the isotope ratios, this method requires very precise measurement of the experimental isotopic distribution abundances, free from any artifacts introduced by noise, sample heterogeneity, or other experimental sources.
Related Papers
- → Isotope ratio mass spectrometry(2008)298 cited
- → Sourcing Organic Compounds Based on Natural Isotopic Variations Measured by High Precision Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry(2003)47 cited
- → ABSOLUTE ISOTOPIC ABUNDANCE RATIO AND THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF CHLORINE(1963)10 cited
- → A New Statistical Model and a Redefinition of Isotopic Ratio(2012)
- Determining of isotopic abundance ratio and content for reactor pins(1991)