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Isotope reference materials are essential to enable reliable and comparable isotope data. This article reviews the work in this field within the past years. The focus is on all stable elements, except for classical stable isotopes (H, C, N, O, S) and for radioactive elements. Currently available isotope reference materials are listed. The limitations of synthetic isotope mixtures being used to characterize these materials are discussed, as well as the limitations of the isotope reference materials, such as uncertainty and homogeneity. The needs for present research on isotope variations are being considered and are compared to the limitations of current isotope reference materials. This disagreement between both can only be solved by providing isotope reference materials defining a δ-scale for each element of interest. Such materials should be provided with additional data on isotope abundances whenever possible. As an outlook a possible outline for a new program on isotope reference materials is discussed.
The ?- branching ratio of 64Cu was determined by investigating the resulting decay products in copper doped by neutron transmutation. The numbers of 64Zn and 64Ni atoms were analyzed using isotope dilution analysis combined with thermal ionization mass spectrometry. A ?- branching ratio of (38.06±0.30)% was obtained, which agrees with the study of Kawada (Appl. Radiat. Isot. 37 (1) (1986) 7) to a higher accuracy. However, our result differs from the value cited in the NUDAT database of (39.0±0.3)%.
The present work describes the development of an existing TIMS procedure to a reference procedure for low sulfur concentration measurements in fossil fuels. With this enhanced procedure SI-traceable sulfur mass fractions below 10 mg kg-1 can be obtained. The achieved detection limit is approximately 0.2 mg kg-1. The procedure was validated by certified reference materials. The procedure was already applied to candidate reference materials and to samples analysed within projects of the Comité Consultatif pour la Quantité de Matière CCQM.
Additionally the influence of the isotopic composition on the results and its corresponding uncertainty was studied. Reference data published in the literature on the isotopic composition of sulfur were assessed.
In this study, an analytical procedure for multi-element screening of 40 elements in milk and feed samples was developed. Three different digestion and two different calibration methods were tested for the best suitability. The analytical procedure for the quantification of minor and trace elements is based on sector field ICP-MS (SF-ICP-MS). The method validation revealed good agreement between the determined elemental mass fractions and the certified values of two milk and three feed reference materials. Milk samples of dairy cows at different feeding regimes were collected from two different farms. The results of our study showed significant differences of nine elemental mass fractions (Li, P, Mn, Co, Cu, Rb, Sr, Br, I) between milk from the two locations. Further, a correlation between the elemental mass fractions of milk and the ingested feed and water was observed.
Isotope reference materials are needed to calibrate and validate analytical procedures used for the determination of isotope amount ratios, procedurally defined isotope ratios or so-called δ values. In contrast to the huge analytical progress in isotope ratio analytics, the production of isotope reference materials has not kept pace with the increasing needs of isotope analysts. Three representative isotope systems are used to explain the technical and non-technical difficulties and drawbacks, on one hand, and to demonstrate what can be achieved at its best, on the other hand. A clear statement is given that new isotope reference materials are needed to obtain traceable and thus comparable data, which is essential for all kinds of isotope research. The range of available isotope reference materials and δ reference materials should be increased and matrix reference materials certified for isotope compositions or δ values, which do not exist yet, should be provided.
Production of three certified reference materials for the sulfur content in gasoline (petrol)
(2007)
Directive 2003/17/EC of the European Parliament and the European Council stipulates that petrol (gasoline) with a total sulfur content below 10 mg kg-1 must be available in all European Union member states by 2009. Three certified reference materials were produced in support of this directive in a joint effort of the members of the European Reference Materials Initiative (ERM). Two of the materials were made from commercial petrol, while the third one was prepared from a blend of commercial petrols. Relative between-ampule heterogeneity of the materials was quantified and found to be below 2.5%. Potential degradation during storage and dispatch was quantified, and shelf lives based on these values were set. The three materials were characterized by three institutes using different variants of isotope-dilution mass spectrometry. The results from the three institutes were combined, and the final uncertainties of the respective sulfur mass fractions were estimated including contributions from heterogeneity, stability, and characterization. The following mass fractions were derived: ERM-EF211, 48.8 ± 1.7 mg kg-1; ERM-EF212, 20.2 ± 1.1 mg kg-1; and ERM-EF213, 9.1 ± 0.8 mg kg-1.
The variation of isotope abundance ratios is increasingly used to unravell natural and technical questions. In the past the investigation and interpretation of such variations was the field of a limited number of experts. With new upcoming techniques and research topics in the last decades, such as provenance and authenticity of food, the number of published isotope data strongly increased. The development of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (ICPMS) from an instrument for simple quantitative analysis to highly sophisticated isotope abundance ratio machines influenced this process significantly. While in former times only experts in mass spectrometry were able to produce reproducible isotope data, nowadays many laboratories, never been in touch with mass spectrometry before, produce isotope data with an ICPMS. Especially for such user isotope reference materials (IRM) are indispensible to enable a reliable method validation. The fast development and the broad availability of ICPMS also lead to an expansion of the classical research areas and new elements are under investigation. Here all users require IRM to correct for mass fractionation or mass discrimination or at least to enable isotope data related to a common accepted basis. Despite this growing interest suitable IRM are still lacking for a number of isotope systems such as magnesium.
Development and validation of a method to determine the boron isotopic composition of crop plants
(2011)
We present a comprehensive chemical and mass spectrometric method to determine boron isotopic compositions of plant tissue. The method including dry ashing, a three-step ion chromatographic boron–matrix separation, and 11B/10B isotope ratio determinations using the Cs2BO2+ graphite technique has been validated using certified reference and quality control materials. The developed method is capable to determine δ11B values in plant tissue down to boron concentrations of 1 mg/kg with an expanded uncertainty of ≤1.7‰ (k = 2). The determined δ11B values reveal an enormous isotopic range of boron in plant tissues covering three-quarters of the natural terrestrial occurring variation in the boron isotopic composition. As the local environment and anthropogenic activity mainly control the boron intake of plants, the boron isotopic composition of plants can be used for food provenance studies.
Gravimetric synthetic mixtures of seven enriched, purified cadmium isotope materials were used to determine the correction factors for mass fractionation (MC-TIMS) and mass discrimination (MC-ICP-MS). The isotope abundance ratios determined for various natural cadmium materials represents the isotope composition for natural cadmium materials. Correction of the isotope abundance ratios observed yielded isotope abundances of 106Cd 0.012450(8), 108Cd 0.008884(4), 110Cd 0.124846(16), 111Cd 0.127955(14), 112Cd 0.241110(38), 113Cd 0.122254(22), 114Cd 0.287439(60) and 116Cd 0.075183(32). The newly determined atomic weight of natural cadmium based on SI-traceable evaluation of the isotope abundance ratios is 112.41384(18). The cadmium material designated in the paper as Cd-2211 can be used as an isotope reference material with a δ(114Cd/110Cd)-value of 0. The results obtained show that the uncertainties for the isotope abundances and the atomic weight given as IUPAC values for cadmium are overestimated.