AMS in combustion and tribology research

An obvious, but previously untested, application of accelerator mass spectrometry is in the use of 14C as a tag to trace the erosion of combustion of carbon containing materials. The attractiveness of 14C as a site-specific, non-labile tag has been pointed out previously as part of the development of AMS for biomedical applications. Developments in sample handling protocols and in ion source performances have made it possible to work easily over five to seven orders of magnitude in concentration of isotopic labile (105 Modern to 10-2 Modern). The authors show that organics labeled with 14C can be added to fossil materials (naturally depleted in 14C) at no regulatory penalty or radiation hazard and usefully used to measure combustion of specific fractions of fuel or to trace the erosion of graphitic materials into lubricant sumps