¹⁴C Blank Assessment in Small-Scale Compound-Specific Radiocarbon Analysis of Lipid Biomarkers and Lignin Phenols

Compound-specific radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating often requires working with small samples of < 100 µg carbon (µgC). This makes the radiocarbon dates of biomarker compounds very sensitive to biases caused by extraneous carbon of unknown composition, a procedural blank, which is introduced to the samples during the steps necessary to prepare a sample for radiocarbon analysis by accelerator mass spectrometry (i.e., isolating single compounds from a...