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Molecular
Paleoclimatology - Laboratory
Laboratory
Preparative organic-geochemical laboratory
We operate an organic-geochemical preparative laboratory to isolate specific lipid fractions for quantification and compound-specific isotope analyses (13C, D/H, 14C). For this, we have the following devices:
Automatic solvent extraction
An Automated Solvent Extractor (ASE200) is used for standardized extraction of various sample materials under high pressure and elevated temperature using programmable solvent mixtures.
Rotary Evaporator
A Heidolph rotation evaporator is used to remove large quantities of solvents from extracts and collect waste solvents for controlled disposal.
Fume hoods
Liquid chromatographic separations, blow-down of solvents from small vials using a Flexi-vap device and other chemical reactions are conducted in 2 fume hoods with exhaust filters.
Muffle oven
We use a large muffle furnace for effective combustion-cleaning of glassware.
Gas-Chromatograph for lipid quantification
We use a ThermoScientific Focus gas-chromatograph with flame-ionisation-detector (GC-FID) equipped with autosampler for checking lipid fractions on purity and lipid quantification.
Gas-Chromatograph Mass-Spectrometer
We use an Agilent 7820 gas-chromatograph with 5977E mass-selective detector (GC-MSD) and autosampler for structural identification of unknown lipids and quantification of hopanoids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc.
Preparative Gas-Chromatograph
We use an Agilent 7890B gas-chromatograph with Gerstel cold-injection system (KAS), auto-sampler, flame-ionization detector (FID) and a Gerstel PFC1 preparative fraction collector to isolate specific lipid fractions for radiocarbon dating.
Gas-isotope mass-spectrometers
In the MARUM mass-spectrometry laboratory we operate 2 dedicated gas-isotope mass-spectrometers for compound-specific 13C and d/H analyses.
For more information on isotope mass-spectrometric devices please see:
Molecular-isotopic Mass-Spectrometry
Laboratory videos
These videos were made by Ralph Kreutz with help from Very Meyer (BIG thanks!). Internal use only, password upon request.