Re: Cup configurations on MAT 252
You may need to move your cups, but if you are going after natural abundances of 15N15N there is another, potentially more important issue.  The filament in your instrument contains a thin oxide coating that will emit CO from reaction with trace hydrocarbon contaminants and NO from reaction with N2 analyte.  These are low enough in abundance that you might not notice their contribution to measurements of singly-substituted molecules, but they can introduce large systematic errors in analyses of doubly-substiuted isotopologues (which typically make up only a few ppm of the analyte gas).  This issue can only be ignored if you are planning to analyze highly enriched gases.

John

Hi All,
            I am attempting to add m/z 30 to my nitrogen analysis. I have managed to get the mass added in the ratio editor (thanks to a previous posting by Gerald Olack in Nov 2004), however, I do not know which cup to assign the mass. At present, my cup configuration for nitrogen is set to cup 2 for m/z 28 and cup 5 for m/z 29. This was determined by a Finnigan technician during install. This instrument has 6 cups installed and I have tried placing m/z 30 in cup 6 but I get no response in cup 6 when I check this with CO or N2 gas. My CO2 configuration uses cups 2 (m/z44), 4 (m/z45), and 6 (m/z46), shouldn't N2 be the same cups but different magnet step? I have tried this and get no response on any cups. Anyone out there with a MAT 252 and has managed to add m/z 30? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Brian Jones
Stable Isotope Ecology Lab
Eller O&M Bldg. Rm 408
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Texas A&M University
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