Evaluation and inter-comparison of oxygen-based OC-EC separation methods for radiocarbon analysis of ambient aerosol particle samples

Radiocarbon analysis is a widely-used tool for source apportionment of aerosol particles. One of the big challenges of this method, addressed in this work, is to isolate elemental carbon (EC) for 14C analysis. In the first part of the study, we validate a two-step method (2stepCIO) to separate total carbon (TC) into organic carbon (OC) and EC...

On a possible bias in elemental carbon measurements with the Sunset thermal/optical carbon analyser caused by unstable laser signal

We present results that demonstrate a possible bias in the fractioning of total carbon (TC) into elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) for measurements with the Sunset Laboratory Inc. Thermal/Optical Carbon Aerosol Analyser. The bias is caused by an unstable laser transmission signal. The transmission signal during the analysis of an...

Quantification methods of Black Carbon: Comparison of Rock-Eval analysis with traditional methods

Black Carbon (BC) quantification methods are reviewed, including new Rock-Eval 6 data on BC reference materials. BC has been reported to have major impacts on climate, human health and environmental quality. Especially for risk assessment of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) it is important to account for risk reduction caused by BC, as...

Animal studies using an oxygen-tension sensor for tissue viability monitoring

Leakage at the site of an anastomosis is the main, yet unsolved reason for mortality in abdominal surgery. Every year, a large number of patients die due to anastomotic leakage after surgery. An objective aid to monitor the anastomotic site pre- and postoperatively and detect leakage at an early stage, is needed. Therefore, a miniature, wireless...

Timing of the last sequence boundary in a fluvial setting near the highstand shoreline - Insights from optical dating

We investigated, by means of optical dating, the chronostratigraphic nature of the sequence boundary associated with the last glacial in a sandy to gravelly compound paleovalley fill, just landward of the highstand shoreline in the Rhine-Meuse Delta (Netherlands). Laterally extensive fluvial strata deposited during oxygen isotope stage 4, coeval...

Optical measurement of bubbles: System design and application

Affordable high quality charge-coupled device (CCD) video cameras and image processing software are powerful tools for bubble measurements. Because of the wide variation between bubble populations, different bubble measurement systems (BMSs) are required depending upon the application. Two BMSs are described: a mini-BMS designed to observe the...