Use of FTIR spectroscopy for the measurement of CO2 carbon stable isotope ratios

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most important long-lived anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Ocean, land and biosphere contribute to take up CO2 emissions, but approximately half of fossil fuel CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. The study of isotopic composition of CO2 can give useful information for assessing and quantifying the uptake of CO2 in the environmental compartments, as well as for distinguishing natural from anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere. In this work, an activity for the development of a Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) based method for δ13C-CO2 determination in CO2 in air mixtures is presented. The FTIR can be calibrated by a classical approach based on primary calibration gas standards, but an alternative calibration can be based on the generation of synthetic spectra, by means of radiative transfer calculation codes such as the Multiple Atmospheric Layer Transmission (MALT University of Wollongong, Australia). Another software (B-FOS) developed at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) allows to interface MALT and the FTIR management software. This calibration approach is fast and reliable and can be used when the classical calibration based on reference gas mixtures might be demanding. The uncertainty obtained for δ13C-CO2 measurements is around 0.1 ‰, at a nominal CO2 mole fraction of 400 μmol mol-1 in air.