Compound Specific Isotope Analysis
Revealing Nature's Evidence

Nature has provided an internal tracer in the form of the isotopic ratio. Processes such as biotic and abiotic degradation cause significant isotopic effects.

Compound Specific Isotope Analysis generates isotopic characterization of individual compounds which can be used to quantitatively assess degradation processes.

Microseeps is the first commercial laboratory in North America to offer Compound Specific Isotope Analysis.

 

How Can CSIA's Isotopic Data Help Achieve Site Closure?

The isotopic data provided by CSIA can be used to:

• unambiguously determine that biodegradation of COCs is occurring
• identify the mechanisms of degradation
• determine the rate and extent of degradation in some COCs

And perhaps most importantly, when isotopic constraints are integrated into reactive transport models,

• these become powerful predictive tools for assessing the extent and duration of contaminant plumes, thus decreasing monitoring and remediation costs.

 

Some potential CSIA applications include:

• Apparent cis-DCE stall: Is the cis-DCE degrading, or dormant?
• DNAPL: Is there progress?
• Pump and treat shutoff: Is there degradation occurring?
• Biodegradation of MTBE: Is it occurring?
• ISCO:  Altered hydrogeology or successful degradation?
• Abiotic: How does one document this elusive mechanism?
• ISCR iron wall - ZVI - nano-scale iron -  other reducing mixtures: Where did it go?
• LTM: How can CSIA be used to reduce costs?
• Aerobic cis-DCE and VC: How do we prove progress without daughter or end products?
• Co-metabolic degradation of chlorinated ethenes: What supports the concentration declines?

> Click here to view descriptions of each of these potential applications.

 

CSIA, the Evidence is Clear

CSIA is an evolving technique as the result of research over the last 30 years. New instrumentation has become commercially available which allows the analysis of carbon and hydrogen isotopic content of compounds of interest in a continuous flow mode at concentrations of interest in environmental remediation.

Read more about Microseeps' CSIA capabilities and the science supporting it:

•   Advanced Tools for Sampling and Analysis
•   CSIA: The Science, Technology and Selected Examples from the Literature with Application to Fuel Oxygenates and Chlorinated Solvents
•   CSIA Case Studies: Sites, Questions, and Answers
•   CSIA and ISCO
•   Forensic Investigations Using Compound Specific Isotope Analyses
•   Interpreting Your CSIA Report
•   USEPA Guide to CSIA

Webinar recordings from USEPA / CLU-IN:

• Stable Isotope Analyses to Understand the Degradation of Organic Contaminants in Ground Water, Part 1 (John T. Wilson, USEPA)
• Stable Isotope Analyses to Understand the Degradation of Organic Contaminants in Ground Water, Part 2 (John T. Wilson, USEPA)
• Applications of Stable Isotope Analyses to Environmental Forensics (Part 3), and to Understand the Degradation of Chlorinated Organic Contaminants, Part 4 (Paul Philp, University of Oklahoma and Barbara Sherwood Lollar, University of Toronto)

Video

Compound Specific Isotope Analysis

Forensic Investigations Using CSIA

CSIA-ISCO Webinar