An approach toward automatic graphitization of CO2 samples for AMS 14C measurements

To improve the throughput of sample preparation for AMS 14C measurements, we made improvements to a manually operated system for CO2 reduction at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University. Most of the processes of the CO2 reduction procedure were automated, and a CO2 sample containing 0.3-1 mg carbon was credibly reduced to graphite within a few hours by hydrogen gas with catalytic iron powder in a 7.4 ml reactor consisting of a quartz reduction tube, a pressure transducer gauge and a cold finger trap equipped with a temperature-controllable trap device for trapping CO2 and H2O. The improved system has the potential to easily carry out graphitization of more than 100 CO2 samples per week. The 14C values of graphite produced from 14C-free CO2 (>0.3 mg C) were 0.0028 ± 0.0010 fraction modern carbon (FMC) on average (n = 8, 1std), which are almost the same as the black level of 1-MV HVEE Tandetron installed at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM).