The latest venture funded by the University of Otago’s Leading Thinker’s initiative is the opening of a NZ$2.5 million Trace Element Analysis Centre.

Amongst the $2 million dollars’ worth of equipment is a multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. This machine is capable of analysis of a range of metals and several non-metals at below one part in 10 to the power of 12.

This equipment enable scientists working at the University to use more sophisticated means of testing crime scenes, to determine fish migration patterns in rivers and marine systems, to help identify big-picture processes such as climate change, from minute information.

In order to test such samples, an extremely clean environment is required, and this will be provided in the Centre, where the cleanest parts of the new “clean room” are some 100,000 times cleaner than the average home.

Amongst the particular projects to be undertaken at the Centre are the detection of short-lived radioactive isotopes in meteorites. This will help unravel the origins of the solar system. They are also looking to work on elemental and isotopic “fingerprinting” in order to authenticate New Zealand products being sold overseas.

Inductively coupled plasma is a high-temperature plasma sustained with a radio-frequency electric current, which produces ions. The plasma is sustained in a constant flow of argon gas which can reach temperatures as high as 10,000 K.

In mass spectrometry, the ions from the plasma are extracted through a series of cones into a mass spectrometer. The ions are separated on the basis of their mass-to-charge ratio, and a detector receives an ion signal proportionate to the concentration.

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The University of Otago is situated in Dunedin, New Zealand, and is the oldest University in the country.

Mike Crowl also writes here