How To Process An Isotope

Lab machines at the University of Alaska Anchorage Stable Isotope Lab analyze isotopes, forms of the same chemical element with different numbers of neutrons and different atomic weights.

How To Process An Isotope

Enter the Environment and Natural Resources Institute Stable Isotope Lab at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Matt Rogers, research scientist at UAA, runs day-to-day operations in the Stable Isotope Lab. Isotopes are forms of the same chemical element with different numbers of neutrons and slightly different atomic weights. Rogers introduces tools used to separate light isotopes from heavy isotopes in the lab. These machines analyze samples ranging from rainwater to polar bear hair!

“Your normal nitrogen gas molecule has two nitrogens of mass 14 but some of them have one with a mass 15 and it’s a little bit heaver. So as it’s shot down this flight tube the heavier one has a little bit more momentum and it takes a little bit longer; it goes around this curve a little bit more slowly.” – Matt Rogers

The Stable Isotope Lab was founded by Welker as part of his original appointment at UAA and his NSF Major Research Instrumentation award that Welker received in 2008. Dr. Jeff Welker, a Fulbright Distinguished US Arctic Chair and a professor of Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage, has been investigating the water isotope cycle in the Arctic and across all of N America for the past 20 years.

How isotope lab machines process isotopes

How isotope lab machines process isotopes

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(How isotope lab machines process isotopes)

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