A theoretical comparison between intentional elemental and isotopic atmospheric tracers |
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| Institution: | 1. U.S. Geological Survey, 956 National Center, 12201 Sunrise Valley Dr., Reston, VA 20192, United States;2. University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, Lexington, KY 40511, United States;3. U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Rd., MS 910, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States;4. U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, United States;5. State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China;1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Materials Laser Processing and Modification, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, PR China;2. Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V6, Canada;1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA;2. Center for Applied Energy Research, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40511, USA;1. State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology, China;2. College of Geoscience and Survey Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing 100083, China;3. School of Resources and Geosciences, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China;4. Chongqing Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Chongqing 400042, China;5. School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia |
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| Abstract: | A theoretical comparison has been made between intentional elemental and intentional isotopic tracers for the study of the fate of emissions into the atmosphere. The use of an elemental tracer requires a very large signal to background ratio because the latter cannot be determined while the tracer experiment is in progress. It is shown that the variation in the ambient background is the major source of uncertainty for the elemental tracer. The use of a stable isotopic tracer is definitive because the isotopic composition of the background is constant and can be measured in real time during the isotopic analysis of the sample. Simple error analysis suggests that the isotopic tracer is intrinsically definitive and more accurate compared to the elemental tracer. This is because elemental tracers are subject to inherent biases of unknown magnitude that do not exist for isotopic tracers. If it is assumed that the background can vary by a factor of two during a tracer experiment, then for a given confidence in the detection of the tracer signal more than 104 times more elemental tracer is required than isotopic tracer. It is concluded that stable isotopic tracers are inherently superior to elemental tracers; however; this conclusion now needs to be demonstrated in an actual field experiment. |
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