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Dear Isotopers, Wešve been using a metal insert in our Costech EA combustion tube for the last month or so. The good news is that it is easy to clean out ash. Wešre using the metal insert because a lot of large powdered, acidified rocks are being analyzed. My question is the following: With the quartz inserts, some of the HCl generated from combusting salty or acidified samples, reacts with the quartz insert, removing at least a part of it. We use a silver wool plug at the bottom of the combustion reactor for further halide scavenging. Does anyone else use the metal inserts and see any effects of halides ŗbreaking through˛ to the Conflo or IRMS? Regards, Marilyn Dr. Marilyn L. Fogel, Wilbur W. Mayhew Professor of Geo-Ecology Director of the Environmental Dynamics and Geo-Ecology Institute (http://edge.ucr.edu/) Dept. of Earth Sciences University of California Riverside 900 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92521 [log in to unmask] Phone: 209-205-6743