W.M. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometer

The UC Irvine Keck-CCAMS facility was set up in 2002 with a $2M grant from the W.M.Keck Foundation and matching funds from UC Irvine. The facility consists of three elements:

1. A compact AMS particle accelerator from National Electrostatics Corporation (NEC 0.5MV 1.5SDH-2 AMS system) for measuring radiocarbon (on left).
2. A dedicated companion instrument (Finnegan Delta Plus stable isotope ratio mass spectrometer) for measuring carbon stable isotope ratios ( 13C/12C).
3. A new sample preparation laboratory to supplement existing UC Irvine preparation labs to pre-treat, combust, hydrolyze and graphitize radiocarbon samples.