Use of carbon isotopic ratios in nontargeted analysis to screen for anthropogenic compounds in complex environmental matrices.

ABSTRACT: Analytical data for ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC), nontargeted, high-resolution, mass-spectrometry (HR/MS) molecular features from a wide array of samples are used to calculate ¹³C₁¹²C_(n-1)/¹²C_n isotopologue ratios. These ratios increase with molecular carbon number roughly following a trend defined by atmospheric carbon. When the effective source reservoir ¹³C/¹²C ratio is calculated from the isotopologue ratio (assuming a fractionation factor of unity), features in biotic samples uniformly are tightly grouped, proximate to atmospheric ¹³C/¹²C ratio. In contrast, features in soil natural organic matter (NOM), dust NOM and anthropogenic compounds range from p

SUBMITTER: Washington JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8287460 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature