Fossil fuels spectrometer

It is necessary to calibrate the 14C time scale for greater dating accuracy. However, the second-order variations are at least as important as the first-order constancy of atmospheric 14C. For example, they provide a record of prehistoric solar variations, changes in the Earth s dipole moment and an insight into the fate of C02 from fossil fuel combustion. Improved techniques are needed that will enable the precise measurement of small cellulose samples from single tree rings. The tandem accelerator mass spectrometer (TAMS) may fill this need. 

The Py-MS technique has been used extensively to characterize synthetic polymers, biopolymers, and fossil fuels (5-8,10, 11). In this work the technique has been modified by using a mass spectrometer which provides precise mass measurements directly upon pyrolysis. The advantage of this approach is two... 

The second-derivative spectrometer produces a signal which is proportional to the curvature of the absorption spectrum with respect to wavelength. This signal is proportional to the concentration of the measured compound and is additive for the various component spectra resulting from a mixture of compounds. The curvature is often quite large and speciflc to individual compounds, thus allowing selective analysis of component compounds in rather complex samples. Many of the components found in the process streams of fossil-fuel conversion facilities have quite distinctive second-derivative spectra. For details of the second-derivative spectrometer and of the method of data analysis used for a mixture of compounds, the reader should consult References 7, 8, 9, and 10,... 

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