Fractionation in position-specific isotope composition during vaporization of environmental pollutants measured with isotope ratio monitoring by 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry
2015
Julien, Maxime | Parinet, Julien | Nun, Pierrick | Bayle, Kevin | Höhener, Patrick | Robins, Richard J. | Remaud, Gérald S.
Isotopic fractionation of pollutants in terrestrial or aqueous environments is a well-recognized means by which to track different processes during remediation. As a complement to the common practice of measuring the change in isotope ratio for the whole molecule using isotope ratio monitoring by mass spectrometry (irm-MS), position-specific isotope analysis (PSIA) can provide further information that can be exploited to investigate source and remediation of soil and water pollutants. Position-specific fractionation originates from either degradative or partitioning processes. We show that isotope ratio monitoring by 13C NMR (irm-13C NMR) spectrometry can be effectively applied to methyl tert-butylether, toluene, ethanol and trichloroethene to obtain this position-specific data for partitioning. It is found that each compound exhibits characteristic position-specific isotope fractionation patterns, and that these are modulated by the type of evaporative process occurring. Such data should help refine models of how remediation is taking place, hence back-tracking to identify pollutant sources.
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