Mass spectrometry and Isotope Geochemistry at UTA
Analytical Clean Room Laboratory (Room 203)
A 400 ft2 ISO-6 clean room with ISO-4 laminar flow workbenches for demanding, low blank sample preparation work.
Mass Spectrometry Laboratory (Room 141)
A 200 ft2 Featuring one VG mass spectrometer (TIMS) for high-precision isotope ratio measurements.
Raman Spectrometry Laboratory (Room 141)
A DXRi Laser Raman microscope that gives research grade results.
X-Ray Florescence Laboratory (Room 237)
A Brooker Tracer III SD handheld XRF gives high-precision measurements for elemental and chemical analysis.
Clean Room Laboratory
The clean room laboratories are designed for the preparation of different types of natural materials, solids, liquids, for analyses of trace metal concentrations and their isotopic compositions. A wide range of samples are analyzed, including different types of terrestrial rocks and meteorites, water (sea water, river and ground waters, atmospheric and marine particulates. Sample preparation typically involves weighing, acid digestion, and separation of the target elements from the sample matrix by ion exchange chromatography. The whole laboratory is kept under positive-pressure with Class 1000 HEPA filtered air to provide a clean working environment. All critical sample preparation work is carried out in all of laminar flow benches. These are equipped with further HEPA filters that ensure an ultra-clean work space. The clean room comprises an ante-room, middle room, and an ultra-clean room with progressively increasing positive air pressure. This laboratory is custom-built with the ultra- clean room being metal free. All chemical procedures in this laboratory utilize only ultra-pure water and mineral acids prepared by sub-boiling distillation.
The acids used in this lab for sample digestion include:
Hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, hydrobromic acid and Nitric acid.
The acids used in this lab for column chemistry include:
Hydrochloric acid and hydrobromic acid.
Mass Spectrometry Laboratory
This is a VG Sector Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) with five faraday collectors, a Daly multiplier, a 10-sample turret and other standard features. An external optical pyrometer for measurement of filament temperatures is also available. This Mass Spectrometer allows for routine high precision Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope ratio measurements for geochemical tracer and geochronological studies. This instrument is 28 years old, transplanted from its original purchase source at The University of Rochester in 1988 and has been upgraded on more than three occasions, most recently in 2013 from NSF funds.
As shown above, we maintain a filament degassing device equipped with a filament heating system in a high vacuum chamber maintained by a turbo-molecular pump. To the right is a work bench where separated samples of Nd, Sr and Pb are loaded on degassed and clean filaments of Re and Ta in phosphoric acid for Nd and Sr, and for Pb in a colloidal suspension of silica gel and phosphoric acid. Not shown in the picture above, to the left is a filament welding unit where a single strips of Re and Ta are spot-welded onto filament posts.
Raman Microscopy Laboratory
We have recently acquired a DXRi Laser Raman Spectroscope with a 532 nanometer laser Electromagnetic radiation from the illuminated sample spot is collected with a lens and sent through a monochromator. Elastic scattered radiation at the wavelength corresponding to the laser line (Rayleigh scattering) is filtered out by either a notch filter, edge pass filter, or a band pass filter, while the rest of the collected light is dispersed onto a detector.
This instruments provides a broad area of a sample identified by its characteristics Raman shift.
X-Ray Fluorescence Laboratory
A Bruker Tracer III SD handheld XRF in our laboratory yields ready measurements for multiple, both major and trace, elemental analysis of rocks, minerals, soils and fluids.
In addition to the above, major equipment and laboratory facilities acquired recently, since 2013, we also have added the following instrumentation in our new laboratories for geomechanics, wet chemistry, and stable isotope mass spectrometry.
- Structurul geology and geomechanics lab includes equipment for field mapping, including differential GPS system, and unmanned aerial vehicle for 3D photogrammetry, laboratory rock mechanics equipment also includes a 25 ft long Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar apparatus, a servo-controlled, hydraulically actuated uniaxial compression machine and an 8 Channel triggered acoustic emission system. These facilities are complemented by computational tools.
- In addition to the ultra clean room laboratory components described above, we have added centrifuges, low temperature ovens, muffle furnace, sonic dismembrator, shaker- table, vortex mixer, an ultra-pure deionized water MilliQ system and a ESI New Wave micromill.
- Our newly refurbished Light Stable Isotope Laboratory is equipped with a Finnegan Delta V Advantage isotope ratio mass spectrometer, a Gasbench II, and an Elemental Analyzer. We are capable of analyzing organic matter TOC%, TN%, δ13C, and δ15N, carbonate δ18O, δ13C, and dissolved inorganic carbon δ13C values.
- In classroom teaching, for mineralogy and petrology courses we have added 20 Leica polarizing light microscopes for students added in 2014.
