Preliminary report on small-mass graphitization for radiocarbon dating using EA-AGE3 at JAEA-AMS-TONO

Abstract

In the case of AMS 14C measurements, the CO2 gas purification procedure from solid samples by the vacuum glass line has been performed as a traditional preparation technique. In some cases (e.g., Morgenroth et al., 2000; Yoneda et al., 2004), sample combustion and gaseous CO2 separation procedures were automatically performed by the EA. Subsequently, the automated graphitization equipment (AGE) was developed by IonPlus AG (Němec et al., 2010; Wacker et al., 2010; Solis et al., 2015). The AGE equipment combined with EA can be utilized as a fully automated sample preparation system to be employed for 14C measurements using standard-sized carbon samples (~1 mg). In fact, currently the third generation of the AGE equipment (AGE3) is commercially available (Solís et al., 2015). Notably, small-mass 14C measurements have been performed on analyte samples characterized by a carbon mass below ~0.1–0.05 mg by the AMS system after manual graphitization using the small-volume vacuum glass line (e.g., Delqué-Količ et al., 2013). However, the EA-AGE3 system has not yet been utilized to perform small-mass sample graphitization for the IAEA standards. In order to evaluate the suitability of the EA-AGE3 system for use in the small-mass graphitization and highefficiency sample preparation techniques, the EA-AGE3 Preliminary report on small-mass graphitization for radiocarbon dating using EA-AGE3 at JAEA-AMS-TONO