A robust method for ammonium nitrogen isotopic analysis in freshwater and seawater at natural abundance levels

Natural ammonium N isotopic abundance has been increasingly used in studies of marine and freshwater biogeochemistry. However, current methods are time-consuming, subject to interference from DON, and not reliable at low concentrations. Our new method for determining the δ15N of ammonium overcomes these difficulties by employing the oxidation of ammonium to nitrite followed by conversion of nitrite to nitrous oxide. In the first step, ammonium is quantitatively oxidized by hypobromite at pH~12. After the addition of sodium arsenite to consume excess hypobromite, yield is verified by colorimetric NO2-measurement using sulfanilamide and naphthyl ethylenediamine (NED). Nitrite is further reduced to N2O by a 1:1 sodium azide and acetic acid buffer solution using previously established procedures. Buffer concentration can be varied according to sample matrix to ensure that a reaction pH between 2 and 4 is reached. The product nitrous oxide is then isotopically analyzed using a continuous flow purge and cryogenic trap system coupled to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. Reliable δ15N values (±0.31‰) are obtained over a concentration range of 0.5 μM to 20 μM using 20 ml volumes of either fresh or seawater samples. Reagent blanks are very low, about 0.05 μM. There is no interference from any of the nitrogen containing compounds tested except short chain aliphatic amino acid (i.e. glycine) which typically are not present at sufficiently high environmental concentrations to pose a problem.