Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Nitrogen Mass Fraction and Stable Isotope Ratios for Fourteen Geological Reference Materials: Evaluating the Applicability of Elemental Analyser Versus Sealed Tube Combustion Methods

Boocock, Toby J.; Mikhail, Sami; Prytulak, Julie; Di Rocco, Tommaso; Stüeken, Eva E.

Nitrogen Mass Fraction and Stable Isotope Ratios for Fourteen Geological Reference Materials: Evaluating the Applicability of Elemental Analyser Versus Sealed Tube Combustion Methods Thumbnail


Authors

Toby J. Boocock

Sami Mikhail

Tommaso Di Rocco

Eva E. Stüeken



Abstract

Thirteen commercially available silicate reference materials (RM) and one in‐house reference material, eleven of which have no previously published values, were analysed for nitrogen mass fraction and isotopic ratios with an Elemental Analyser (EA), and a Sealed Tube Combustion line, coupled to a continuous flow isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS). These materials ranged from < 10 μg g−1 to 1% m /m nitrogen mass fractions and δ15N of −0.5 to +19.8‰. Existing nitrogen RM BHVO‐2, MS#5 and SGR‐1b were used to assess the accuracy of the data from the sealed tube combustion line, which was found to be in good agreement with existing published values. In contrast, the EA‐IRMS failed to fully liberate nitrogen from all silicate rocks and minerals (achieving a mean of 44 ± 10% nitrogen yield) resulting in kinetic fractionation of isotope values by −1.4‰ on average. Therefore, sealed tube combustion is better suited for analyses of silicate‐bound nitrogen. The EA worked reliably for organic samples, but care should be taken when using the EA for silicate nitrogen research. Moving forward, it is recommended that BHVO‐2, Biotite‐Fe, FK‐N and UB‐N be used as quality control materials as they appear to be most reproducible in terms of nitrogen mass fraction (relative error < 10%, 1s ), and isotopic composition (< 0.6‰, 1s ).

Citation

Boocock, T. J., Mikhail, S., Prytulak, J., Di Rocco, T., & Stüeken, E. E. (2020). Nitrogen Mass Fraction and Stable Isotope Ratios for Fourteen Geological Reference Materials: Evaluating the Applicability of Elemental Analyser Versus Sealed Tube Combustion Methods. Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research, 44(3), 537-551. https://doi.org/10.1111/ggr.12345

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 19, 2020
Online Publication Date Jul 17, 2020
Publication Date 2020-09
Deposit Date Jul 29, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research
Print ISSN 1639-4488
Electronic ISSN 1751-908X
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 44
Issue 3
Pages 537-551
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/ggr.12345

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (1.1 Mb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2020 The Authors. Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the International Association of Geoanalysts. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations