Water extraction equipment literature for stable isotope research

The application of stable isotope analysis in ecology usually requires the extraction of a large number of plant and soil samples. With the development of mass spectrometry, water extraction, rather than isotope analysis itself, has become the main bottleneck of this study. Using cryogenic vacuum distillation technology, we generated extraction time curves to determine the optimal time required for extraction. Our results show that the average time for plant stems is 60-75 minutes, clay takes 40 minutes, sand takes 30 minutes, and leaves take 20-30 minutes. Compared with the previous literature, the time reported in this article is shorter, but the extraction process is still the rate-limiting step in plant moisture analysis. All in all, in order to improve the efficiency of isotope analysis in ecological research, we still need to improve the technology to eliminate the need for extraction.