Establishment of Chemical Preparation Methods and Development of an Automated Reduction System for AMS Sample Preparation at Kigam

Many previous studies on the sample preparation of various kinds of radiocarbon dating samples by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) have been examined at KIGAM (Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources) and our own procedures have been established. Furthermore, an automated reduction system has been developed. The volume of the reduction region was minimized to improve the reduction yield, and air-actuated pneumatic valves and solenoid arrays were used for computer control of the system. Operation of all the valves and vacuum pumps and signals from the temperature sensors and pressure gauges were interfaced to a personal computer with an A/D board. A computer program was also developed to perform automatic operation of the reduction system. This system consistently shows a higher reduction yield than 90%. The reduction time of the system is currently 140 min.