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Title (Primary) Determination of 15N in 15N-enriched nitrite and nitrate in aqueous samples by reaction continuous-flow quadrupole mass spectrometry
Author Russow, R.
Source Titel Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Year 1999
Department BOPHY; BOFO
Volume 13
Page From 1334
Page To 1338
Language englisch
Abstract The 15N tracer method is the most suitable method for studying complex N transformation processes in microbiology and biochemistry. It entails the constant determination of the 15N abundance of the inorganic nitrogen (N) compounds nitrite and nitrate. However, 15N analytical methods are time-consuming, difficult to automate, and require at least 10 µg of N per determination. An additional obstacle in the case of nitrite is that it usually only occurs in very small amounts (ppb) dwarfed by much larger quantities of nitrate (ppm). More useful is an approach in which the N compound is selectively converted into a gaseous form suitable for direct measurement by mass spectrometry. By using this ‘reaction continuous-flow mass spectrometry’ (R/CFMS) we developed methods for the 15N determination of nitrite and nitrate from tracer experiment samples, i.e. artificially enriched in 15N. Because both methods are based on the same principle, one continuous flow setup connected directly to a quadrupole mass spectrometer for all determinations was used. Nitrite and nitrate are reduced to NO by iodide and titanium(III) chloride, respectively. The technique developed ensures a precision of relative standard deviation ≤3% if at least 0.5 and 2 µg N with an abundance of ≥1 at.% are to be measured for nitrite and nitrate, respectively.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=8351
Russow, R. (1999):
Determination of 15N in 15N-enriched nitrite and nitrate in aqueous samples by reaction continuous-flow quadrupole mass spectrometry
Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 13 , 1334 - 1338