Environmental Measurements Facility

EA User Info

  1. Staff Contact:  Taylor Broek
  2. General: The elemental analyzer is available to all members of the Stanford community.  This is a user run instrument.  Before signing up, users must complete a training session on the instrument and be certified by a facility technician. Once certified, users planning to run samples must sign up on the EA Scheduler.
  3. Operation: The elemental analyzer is available for use by certified users Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm.
  4. Cost: $4 / sample
  5. Samples: Soils and plant material (or other compounds) should be ground to a powder for best results. Samples are then weighed into a tin capsule and carefully folded into a tight ball; commonly referred to as foil balls. We have tin capsules available in EMF that can be used for small to moderate sized sample sets. For larger sample sets (>100 samples), we ask that users order their own tin capsules. Contact EMF staff for capsule recommendations. Required sample size varies based on material, with plants generally requiring between 2 and 5 mg, and soils between 10 and 50 mg. Because of the small mass involved, duplicates are often run, especially with less homogeneous samples. Please note that at this time the instrument is configured to analyze N and C only.
  6. Standards: Results are based on the detection response of a chemical standard with know nitrogen and carbon content (provided by EMF).
  7. Detection Limits:  ~0.1%