Influence of N2O on isotope analyses in CO2 and mass‐spectrometric determination of N2O in air samples

If CO2 is cryogenically separated from atmospheric air for mass-spectrometric isotope analysis, the presence of N2O simultaneously condensed makes it necessary to correct the isotope results. The corrections were experimentally determined by analyzing N2O-CO2 gas mixtures. The results are in good agreement with those of Mook and van der Hoek. A mass-spectrometric method for determining N2O/CO2 partial pressure ratios is discussed. During our experiments, we found that N2O can be produced in a Penning cold cathode manometer.