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HOW TO CONVERT BIOLOGICAL CARBON INTO GRAPHITE FOR AMS

Girma Getachew, Seung-Hyun Kim, Betty J Burri, Peter B Kelly, Kurt W Haack, Ted J Ognibene, Bruce A Buchholz, John S Vogel, Jonathan Modrow, Andrew J Clifford

Abstract


Isotope tracer studies, particularly radiocarbon measurements, play a key role in biological, nutritional, and

environmental research. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is now the most sensitive detection method for 14C, but AMS

is not widely used in kinetic studies of humans. Part of the reason is the expense, but costs would decrease if AMS were used

more widely. One component in the cost is sample preparation for AMS. Biological and environmental samples are commonly

reduced to graphite before they are analyzed by AMS. Improvements and mechanization of this multistep procedure

is slowed by a lack of organized educational materials for AMS sample preparation that would allow new investigators to

work with the technique without a substantial outlay of time and effort. We present a detailed sample preparation protocol for

graphitizing biological samples for AMS and include examples of nutrition studies that have used this procedure.

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