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Inorganic mass spec – the outliers
Regular readers of this blog know that much of my working life has been spent with inorganic mass spectrometers, from quadrupole and multicollector ICP-MS to stable isotope MS and through to TIMS and noble gas MS. That covers most of the “common” inorganic MS, if we can ever call them that, but what about the…
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Who would be a conference exhibitor?
We’re in conference season at the moment, with several of the biggest geochemistry conferences taking place in the second half of the year. That got me thinking about what life is like as an exhibitor. I began my career as an academic, and when I attended conferences, I mostly saw the exhibitors as an opportunity…
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Help! My Mass Spec Needs Fixing!
I’ve worked with mass spectrometers for most of my career, in a wide variety of roles. Recently I’ve been hearing an increasing amount about customer service, or in some cases the lack of it, so I thought I’d take a look at what is changing, and how contemporary companies in our sector have changed to…
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The challenges of life as a lab manager
During my career in isotope ratio mass spectrometry, I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with lab managers in multiple labs and in a number of countries. I feel that their role, whilst highly valued by many scientists and researchers, doesn’t get much visibility, hence they are the subject of today’s blog. I should point out…
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What’s the deal with lithium? (2)
Part 2: measuring lithium and other uses for it In part one of this blog series, we discussed the use of lithium in understanding geochemical processes. In this part, we look at the use of lithium in a completely different application area – the nuclear power sector. We also take a look at how lithium…
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What’s the deal with lithium?
Part 1: Applications and Geological Significance This is the first part in a two-part series about lithium – so get excited! In this first segment we provide an overview of where lithium comes from, how we use it and why it’s important, and of course its significance in answering geological questions. What is Lithium? To…
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Do Mass Spectrometers go to heaven: Can you recycle an Isotope Ratio MS?
This may be upsetting to some of our readers, but the reality is no mass spectrometer can produce data forever (*sobbing into labcoat*). While this can be difficult to accept, rest assured that it’s not over for your geochemically enthusiastic instrument… in fact it’s just the beginning! Here we explore exactly what parts of our…
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Isotopes 101
When we talk about our instrumentation, it’s with the goal of measuring various isotopes… but not all isotopes are created (or destroyed) equally! This is a summary of isotopes in terms of longevity, abundance, and elemental behavior. When people think of isotopes they often think of nuclear plants… but what makes certain isotopes useful for…
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Isotope Ratio MS – Do Looks Matter?
I sometimes attend product development meetings at Isotopx. The subject of instrument design, by which I mean the “aesthetic values” of our products are quite often a subject of discussion. If you know your historic isotope ratio instruments, you’ll know that until relatively recently they been a triumph of function over form, with sometimes an…
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Why are some mass spectrometers Dual Use?
If you work in the Earth sciences, as many of our users do, then you probably don’t come across the term “Dual Use” very often, if at all. Yet for the vendors that supply this community, it is a very significant term and has a large effect on where we supply our instruments to. I…
