Small-mass AMS radiocarbon analysis at Nagoya University

As part of the ongoing development at the AMS facility of the Center for Chronological Research at Nagoya University to radiocarbon (14C) analyze samples smaller than 0.5 mg carbon (mgC), a compact graphitization manifold has been built. Tests with various reference materials show it performs well for samples as small as 0.1 mgC. Preparation with this new system is compared with the performance of the older protocol for regular-sized samples. Furthermore, it is shown that the addition of Cu and Ag before and stepwise heating during sealed-tube combustion of samples with high S content improve the degree of conversion to CO2 without having to resort to special purification measures such as the use of Co3O4 + Ag reagent and an n-pentane/LN2 trap before graphitization.