Influence of N₂O on isotope analyses in CO₂ and mass-spectrometric determination of N₂O in air samples

Abstract

If CO₂ is cryogenically separated from atmospheric air for mass-spectrometric isotope analysis, the presence of N₂O simultaneously condensed makes it necessary to correct the isotope results. The corrections were experimentally determined by analyzing N₂O-CO₂ gas mixtures. The results are in good agreement with those of Mook and van der Hoek. A massspectrometric method for determining N₂O/CO₂ partial pressure ratios is discussed. During our experiments, we found that N₂O can be produced in a Penning cold cathode manometer.