Abstract:
Since the discovery of mass-independent isotope effects, the study of triple oxygen isotope abundance has become a focus and frontier. In traditional oxygen isotopic ratio analysis methods, multiform oxygen is converted to CO
2 and the oxygen isotopic ratios of CO
2 are measured by Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer. However, this method cannot be used to measure
17O isotopic abundance because
17O and
13C in carbon dioxide have the same
m/
z. The key for the triple oxygen isotope abundance analysis is to analyze the
17O isotopic abundance. To measure the
17O isotopic abundance multiform oxygen to O
2 is usually converted and then analyzed by Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer, although the conversion process is complicated and/or dangerous. In this paper a new way to measure
17O/
16O by Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer and Isotopic Spectroscope is presented. The traditional method to convert multiform oxygen to CO
2 is adopted. The CO
2 was then analyzed by Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer to obtain
m/
z45/44 (defined as
R45), and by isotopic spectroscope such as cavity ring down spectroscope (CRDS) to obtain
13C/
12C (defined as
R13). The
17O/
16O was calculated by
17O/
16O=(
R45-
R13)/2. This method has an analytical precision which is better than ±0.08‰ (1
σ). The new method is based on the traditional method with the addition of an analysis step of the carbon isotopic spectroscope for CO
2. With simple data processing, the
17O isotope composition was obtained without conversion of the multiform oxygen to O
2. Moreover, there is no risk in sample preparation for
18O isotopic analysis, and the precision is better than, or equal to, other methods.