Early Career: Instrument and Technician Support for the Isotopic Analysis of Individual Organic Compounds in the Earth System

来自地球科学仪器和设施项目分部的这笔拨款将支持购买一个外围设备，该设备将与南卡罗来纳大学地球科学研究人员共享的现有仪器相结合。该仪器将提供新的分析能力，允许对特定有机化合物的同位素组成进行表征，然后可以用来更好地理解微生物生理学、全球生物地球化学循环和古代气候等过程。这种仪器的可用性将为研究人员提供他们正在进行的研究，也为学生提供必要的实践培训。该仪器将作为一种教育工具来扩展教科书。在本科学习中呈现的知识，并将用于nsf赞助的本科生研究经验（REU）计划。具体来说，研究人员将获得气相色谱仪（GC）外围设备，用于气相色谱仪-燃烧-同位素比质谱仪（GC-c- irms）的操作。将GC前端外围设备集成到现有的IRMS仪器中，可以分离出用于单个同位素分析的特定化合物，否则这些化合物将被“散装”掩盖。有机物分析。该组合仪器将推进对海洋中细菌产生的难降解有机物数量的量化研究，确定地下微生物群落的活动，并调查北极永久冻土中的微生物过程。

This grant from the Division of Earth Sciences Instrumentation and Facilities program will support the purchase of a peripheral device to be coupled to existing instrumentation shared by Earth science researchers at the University of South Carolina. The instrumentation will provide new analytical capabilities allowing the characterization of isotopic composition of specific organic compounds, which can then be used to better understand processes such as microbial physiology, global biogeochemical cycles and ancient climates. The availability of this instrumentation will provide researchers to enhance their ongoing research, and also provide essential hands-on training to students. The instrumentation will be used as an educational tool to expand on ?textbook? knowledge presented in undergraduate studies, and will be used in a NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Specifically, the researchers will acquire a gas chromatograph (GC) peripheral for the operation of a gas-chromatograph-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometer (GC-c-IRMS). The integration of a GC front-end peripheral to an existing IRMS instrument will allow the isolation of specific compounds for individual isotopic analysis, which are otherwise masked by ?bulk? analysis of organic matter. The combined instrumentation will advance research in quantifying the amount of bacterially-produced refractory organic matter in the ocean, identifying the activities of belowground microbial communities, and investigating microbial processes in Arctic permafrost.