Earth Sciences Cleansuite Facility

The Department’s Cleansuite Facility consists of 10 Class 10,000 (ISO Class 7) metal-free laboratories each fitted with 5 Class 100 (ISO Class 5) laminar flow/exhaust hoods and a fume hood. The facility is used for ultra-clean metal-free preparation of a variety of sample materials (e.g. environmental, geological, archaeological and biological) for trace metal concentration and high precision trace metal isotope ratio analysis.

The facility covers approximately 265m² and is supplied with HEPA filtered air by a dedicated computer controlled air-handling unit that maintains the suite of metal-free labs at positive pressure with respect to external areas. This enables contamination-free preparation of sample materials for a range of different analytical techniques. For example: ICP-MS Trace Element Analysis, Multicollector ICP-MS and TIMS.

All lab users undertake introductory and safety training and are provided with Personal Protective Equipment. Training in geochemical clean suite techniques, supervision of trainee users, method development for ion exchange chromatography and advice in planning and experimental design for isotopic investigations are also available (see contact details below).

A sample digestion facility situated outside the metal-free Cleansuite Facility houses a MARS 6 High pressure microwave, an Anton Paar High Pressure Asher and a set of 6 Parr Digestion Vessels. These enable the digestion of a wide range of sample materials that are not amenable to the hotplate digestions carried out in the Cleansuite Facility.

For more information contact: Jane Barling