Contact

Prof. Dr. Anton Wallner

Head Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and Isotope Research
Head
anton.wallnerAthzdr.de
Phone: +49 351 260 3274

Chemistry Labs

Rare radioisotopes are determined with AMS in all sorts of different materials including geological (e.g., rock, river sand, marine sediments), environmental (e.g., water, ice, soil, organic matter), anthropogenic (e.g., steel, concrete, air or water filters) and even extraterrestrial (e.g., meteorite, lunar soil) materials. Sample sizes may range from several milligrams to kilograms of material. In the chemistry labs we extract and isolate the elements of interest by different wet chemical methods. The resulting target material of a few mg is pressed into sample holders for AMS measurement.

We operate two chemistry laboratories dedicated to in-situ and meteoric cosmogenic isotopes (e.g. 10Be, 26Al), and two laboratories dedicated to heavier isotopes (90Sr, 137Cs, 236U, 244Pu, ...), one of them for anthropogenic levels, and one for the lowest levels of these isotopes in the environment.

A schematic flow chart of the major steps of the sample preparation is shown here:

Foto: Flowchart Sample Preparation ©Copyright: Dr. Sebastian Fichter

Capabilities in the chemistry labs:

 
  • Chemical processing of quartz-rich samples for in situ 10Be and 26Al applications
  • Chemical processing of sediment samples for meteoric 10Be applications
  • Chemical processing of different sample materials for analysis of actinides, fission products, and other long-lived radionuclides.
  • Equipped for working with hydrofluoric acid (HF)
  • Dedicated lab for 36Cl- and 129I-samples in a Cl- and S-free environment
  • Equipped for different chemical digestion methods including pressure digestion
  • Different precision balances
  • Equipped for target preparation for HVEE and NEC machines
Target preparation tool ©Dr. Konstanze Stübner

Selected publications

Zwickel, S., Fichter, S., Hotchkis, M., Koll, D., Lachner, J., Norman, M., Pavetich, S., Rugel, G., Stübner, K., Tims, S.,& Wallner, A. (2026). Simultaneous Extraction of Cosmogenic and Interstellar Radionuclides from Lunar Soil. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 573, 166008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2026.166008

Fichter, S., Koll, D., Rolofs, A., & Wallner, A. (2024). Case studies of three geological archives for rare radionuclide measurements using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. Frontiers in Environmental Chemistry, 5, 1379862. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvc.2024.1379862

Loftfield, J., Lachner, J., Malter, M., Stübner, K., & Adolphi, F. (2024). A simple method of purifying authigenic 10Be from sediments for AMS-analysis. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 547, 165179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2023.165179

Koll, D., Wallner, A., Battisson, S., Fichter, S., Fifield, L. K., Froehlich, M. B., Lachner, J., Merchel, S., Pavetich, S., Rugel, G., Slavkovská, Z., Tims, S. G., & Ziegenrücker, R. (2022). Element separation chemistry and cosmogenic 10Be dating of a ferromanganese crust. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 530, 53-58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2022.08.017