Facilities and Instruments

The LUC operates a number of facilities at PSI and offers analytical services.

• Modular electromechanical and thermal ice drill for high-alpine glaciers (maximum 200 m depth)
• Backpack drill for shallow cores (15 m)
• Battery drill for horizontal cores
• Rigid “Patagonia-proven” drilling tent
• Cold room (-20°C)
• Class 100 clean benches
• Continuous ice-melting device (CIM)

• Ion Chromatography (IC): Major inorganic and organic ions
• Wavelength-Scanned Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy (WS-CRDS): Stable isotopes δ¹⁸O and δD
• Inductively Coupled Plasma Sector Field Mass Spectrometry (ICP-SFMS): Trace elements
• Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry (AFS): Hg
• alpha-Spectroscopy: ²¹⁰Pb dating
• Access to a Single Particle Soot Photometer (SP2): Black Carbon
• Access to combustion systems (THEODORE, SUNSET): OC and EC
• Access to Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS): ¹⁴C dating

We perform chemical analyses using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). With the ICP-OES concentrations of up to 70 elements in liquid samples can be analysed.