>Dear Friends,
>I am interested in measuring Nitrogen Isotope in wood samples. I would
>like to know the pre-treatment procedure for wood prior to nitorgen
>isotope analysis.
>Thanks
>Ravi

Dear Ravi,

I have run d15N analyses of wood using a conventional combustion
technique (Poulson et al., 1995, Chemical Geology, 125: 307-315).  I
haven't tried running these analyses by EA-IRMS yet, and maybe others
can comment on this.  I didn't perform any pre-treatment other than
drying and milling the sample.  The technique is rather laborious,
however, as I needed to process large wood samples (due to low N
concentrations).  Two key factors are that complete combustion is
necessary in order to prevent CO formation, and the necessity to
obtain reagents (especially CuO) with very low N blanks.

Cheers,
Simon



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*****
Simon Poulson
Dept. of Geological Sciences MS-172
University of Nevada - Reno
Reno, NV 89557-0138. USA
(775) 784-1104
Fax: (775) 784-1833
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