Wang, Chenyu, Frick, Daniel A., von Blanckenburg, Friedhelm, Frank, Martin , Lian, Ergang, Yang, Shouye and Wittmann, Hella (2024) Simultaneous preconcentration of 9 Be and cosmogenic 10 Be for determination of the 10 Be / 9 Be ratio in (coastal) seawater. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods, 22 (1). pp. 14-24. DOI 10.1002/lom3.10587.

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Abstract

Beryllium isotopes have emerged as a quantitative tracer of continental weathering, but accurate and precise determination of the cosmogenic 10 Be and stable 9 Be in seawater is challenging, because seawater contains high concentrations of matrix elements but extremely low concentrations of 9 Be and 10 Be. In this study, we develop a new, time‐efficient procedure for the simultaneous preconcentration of 9 Be and 10 Be from (coastal) seawater based on the iron co‐precipitation method. The concentrations of 9 Be, 10 Be, and the resulting 10 Be/ 9 Be ratio for Changjiang Estuary water derived from the new procedure agree well with those obtained from the conventional procedure requiring separate preconcentration for 9 Be and 10 Be determinations. By avoiding the separate preconcentration, our newly developed procedure contributes toward more time‐efficient handling of samples, less sample cross‐contamination, and a more reliable 10 Be/ 9 Be ratio. Prior to this, we validated the iron co‐precipitation method using artificial seawater and natural water samples from the Amazon Estuary regarding: (1) the “matrix effect” for Be analysis, (2) its extraction efficiency for pg g −1 levels Be in the presence and absence of organic matter, and (3) the data comparability with another preconcentration method. We calculated that for the determination of 9 Be and 10 Be in most open ocean seawater with typical 10 Be concentrations of > 500 atoms g −1 , good precisions (< 5%) can be achieved using less than 3 liters of seawater compared to more than 20 liters routinely used previously. Even for coastal seawater with extremely low 10 Be concentration (e.g., 100 atoms g −1 ), we estimate a maximum amount of 10 liters to be adequate.

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