Dellinger, Mathieu and Hilton, Robert G. and Nowell, Geoffrey M. (2020) 'Measurements of rhenium isotopic composition in low-abundance samples.', Journal of analytical atomic spectrometry., 35 (2). pp. 377-387.
Abstract
Rhenium (Re) is a trace element whose redox chemistry makes it an ideal candidate to trace a range of geochemical processes. In particular, fractionation of its isotopes 187Re (62.6% abundance) and 185Re (37.4%) may be used to improve our understanding of redox reactions during weathering, both in the modern day and in geological archives. Published methods for measurement of Re isotopic composition are limited by the requirements of Re mass to reach a desirable precision, making the analysis of many geological materials unfeasible at present. Here we develop new methods which allow us to measure Re isotope ratios (reported as δ187Re) with improved precision: ±0.10‰ (2σ) for a mass of Re of ∼1 ng to ±0.03‰ (2σ) for a mass of Re of >10 ng. This is possible due to the combination of a modified column chemistry procedure and the use of 1013 Ω amplifiers for measurement via multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). For river water samples (with Re concentrations typically ∼10−12 g g−1) we design a field-based pre-concentration of Re that can be used with large volumes of filtered water (5–20 L) shortly after sample collection to provide abundant Re for isotope analysis. As a result of these developments we provide new measurements of δ187Re in standards reference materials (δ187Re values range from −0.06 ± 0.07‰ to +0.19 ± 0.05‰) and a seawater standard (δ187Re = +0.10 ± 0.04‰), providing impetus for further exploration of the Re isotope system.
Item Type: | Article |
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Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download PDF (Advance online version) (1173Kb) |
Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download PDF (1177Kb) |
Status: | Peer-reviewed |
Publisher Web site: | https://doi.org/10.1039/C9JA00288J |
Publisher statement: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. |
Date accepted: | 27 November 2019 |
Date deposited: | 08 January 2020 |
Date of first online publication: | 07 January 2020 |
Date first made open access: | 08 January 2020 |
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