Isobar Separator for Anions: Current status

The Isobar Separator for Anions (ISA) is an emerging separation technique of isobars applied first to the selective removal of 36S from 36Cl, achieving a relative suppression ratio of 6 orders of magnitude. Using a radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) column incorporating low energy gas cells, this innovative technique enables the use of a wide range of low energy ion-molecule reactions and collisional-induced dissociation processes for suppressing specific atomic of molecular anions with a high degree of selectivity. Other elemental pairs (analyte/isobar) successfully separated at AMS level include Ca/K, Sr/(Y, Zr), Cs/Ba, Hf/W and Pu/U. In view of these initial successes, an effort to develop a version of the ISA that can be used as a robust technique for routine AMS analysis has been undertaken. We will discuss the detailed layout of a practical ISA and the functional requirements that a combined ISA/AMS should meet. These concepts are currently being integrated in a pre-commercial ISA system that will be installed soon at the newly established A.E. Lalonde Laboratory in Ottawa, Canada.