Umeå Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory

This new facility is now bridging our work in Molecular Geochemistry with Isotope Geochemistry! The Umeå Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory opened in Spring 2019 in a newly renovated laboratory. Our facilities are equipped with  in vacuo Temperature Programmed Desorption cells, a glove box and other reaction cells for in situ time-resolved experimental studies of mineral-gas exchange.

This laboratory is open for clients and collaborators.
Please contact Jean-François Boily or Dmitry Shevela

Our Time-Resolved Membrane-Inlet Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer (DELTA V Plus) is used for time-resolved assays of gaseous analytes and their isotopologues. In our platform, a isotope ratio mass spectrometer DELTA V Plus (Thermo) is connected to various membrane-inlet sample chambers, which enable time-resolved monitoring of gaseous products and their isotopologues. That is the reason why we call our set-up as time-resolved membrane-inlet mass spectrometer (TR-MIMS). This TR-MIMS set-up allows online detection of dissolved gases (such as H2, CH4, CO, CO2, HCN, N2, N2O, O2, H2S, or SO2), volatile compounds (such as CH3OH, C2H5OH, (CH3)2S, (CH3)2SO), and their isotopologues. In combination with isotope labelling it is particularly useful for resolving competing bio(geo)chemical reactions involving common reactants. In addition, this method can be a very powerful tool for n-line detection of isotopologues in geochemistry, soil sciences, cancer research, and in photosynthesis studies. Our DELTA V Plus is equipped with 10 Faraday collectors, ensuring simultaneous acquisition of up to 10 isotope ratios of gases in the range from m/z 2 up to m/z 96.

Below is a schematic representation of a Temperature Programmed Desorption experiment designed to sequentially detect isotopologues of CO2 trapped in the crystalline structure of iron oxides from paleosols that can be used as proxies for the study of Earth’s past atmospheric CO2.