Radiocarbon Measurement Program at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA), Spain

Abstract

In September 2005, an accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) system based on a 1MV Tandetron accelerator arrived at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA). One of the main research programs for this AMS facility is based on radiocarbon. At the same time as the AMS facility was installed and tested, the 14C sample preparation laboratory was designed and set up. A graphitization line that allows the preparation of 5 samples in parallel was designed and built in October 2006. The first months were mainly dedicated to check and optimize all the sample processing. For such a task, several reference samples have been prepared and measured. Since the beginning of 2007, the laboratory has been fully operational and is currently performing as a service for the scientific community. During 2007, nearly 100 unknown samples were prepared and measured in our AMS system. Most of them were for dating purposes, but also other applications were investigated. The performance of the 14C laboratory and dating service will be shown, with some examples as illustration.