O Y C

Dear friends,

Shri S Chandramohan Kumar, Deputy Registrar (Accounts) and Registrar -in-Charge, retired from CWRDM service today. He joined in CWRDM as Purchase Officer in 1980 when CWRDM was in Ranjith, Pattam, Thiruvananthapuram. His residence was within a walkable distance from the Centre. Latter CWRDM was transferred to Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode. He showed his brilliance as Deputy Registrar (Accounts) even though he was not having the qualification of CA, ICWA etc. prescribed for Accounts Officer post. He proved his promotional appointment as Deputy Registrar (Accounts) was a wise decision taken by CWRDM authorities. All his predecessors were from Accoutant General's office. He performed his duties very efficiently and he was up-to-date in all his work. He was very helpful to all who ever met him with any requirement and discharged his duties to the complete satisfaction of the needy. Apart from this he was all in all in the cultural and sports events of CWRDM. He is actively involved in the activities of Sree Hara Hara Mahadeva Temple, Karanthoor. He is bestowed with energetic parents, equalizing better half and well placed two sons.

On the eve of his retirement function Dr N K Joseph, Head, Surface Water Division and present In charge of Registrar elucidated his previous experiences with Account Section of CWRDM when he was the Head of Construction and Maintenance wing. This incident was mentioned in order to show that the Account Section can act as a speedy implementation devise as well as a delaying mechanism. At that time Accounts Officer post was solely filled by deputation from AG's office. Water Management (Agri) Division requested to Construction and Maintenance Wing for providing an over head tank and a 5 HP water pumping system for the implementation of drip Irrigation layout in the experimental field and it required an electrical connection from KSEB. At that time KSEB introduced a preferentical connection scheme known as Own Your Connection (OYC) by paying an additional amount of rupees one thousand for getting urgent electric connection. Construction wing prepared a Voucher for this and submitted to Accounts section for realization of the amount, but instead of sanctioning it the accounts section put up some meagre quarries and returned the voucher to Construction wing. They replied the quarry and re-submitted to the Accounts Section. This process continued for about six months and by that time the amount was raised to two thousand rupees by KSEB. Observing this , the Accounts Section returned the file to Construction wing with a Note that a fresh voucher has to be submitted with the new amount for availing the scheme. Instead of obliging it the construction wing wrote a comment to conduct an inquiry to find out the fact that who is responsible for the loss of one thousand rupees for the Centre. Instantaneously a cheque for two thousand was reached in the construction and maintenance wing. This shows that how speedily the Accounts Section can act. Shri Chandramohan kumar made Accounts Section a vibrant and speedy section catering to the needs of research activities of the Centre as well as employees needs. Each and every one in CWRDM is thankful to him for his splendid legacy left out in the Centre through his unequivocal performance as Deputy Registrar (Accounts).

Shri Chandramohan Kumar payed homage to the departed colleagues, memorised the retired staff of CWRDM, thanked everybody and concluded his response speech with the lyrics of Great Malayalam Poet Shri Vayalar Ramavarma written for the Malayalam movie കൊട്ടാരം വില്‍കാനുണ്ട് .

"ഈ മനോഹര തീരത്ത് തരുമോ
ഇനിയൊരു ജന്മം കൂടി"

The farewell function was presided by CWRDM Executive Director Professor Dr K V Jayakumar and welcome address by Tharangam President Shri MR Venugopal and Vote of thanks by Shri E G Soman, General Secretary, Tarangam.

ktv

IRMS Users Meet-2009

Dear friends,

Second ThrmoFisher S C I E N T I F I C IRMS Users Meet-2009 was held at Kadavu Resort, Kozhikode (Calicut) on 17th and 18th September 2009. It was inaugurated by Dr K Vasu, retired Head, Isotope Hydrology Division of CWRDM. Actually it was proposed to be inaugurated by the Executive Director of CWRDM and Dr Vasue destined to inaugurate this function as an 'intruder', as he himself described it in his inaugural speech, due to the absence of Executive Director as he was assigned some other important duties else where and he has to leave Calicut. I feel that it is a reward for Dr Vasu's lustrous work as he was fully dedicated to establish Isotope Hydrology Division in the Centre starting from his career as Scientist-B in water Management (Agri) Division in 1983 and later established Radio Tracer Laboratory and Central Water Analysis Laboratory with the infallible support of the Executive Director Dr P Basak. Latter Radio tracer Laboratory was upgraded into Isotope Hydrology Division in 1994. He brought so many instruments in the division and IRMS is one among them and naturally he himself is the best person to inaugurate such a meet.

The welcome speech was done by Dr G Ramakrishnan, Senior Director, ThermoFisher Scientific and the key note lecture on the topic "Various Applications of stable isotopes in climatology and Oceanography" .was taken by Professor R Ramesh, PRL, Ahmedabad. Dr Andreas Hilkert from ThermoFisher Scientific, Bremen, Germany, explained the "improvements in IRM-GC/MS Technology" and "Advances in IRMS Technique". Dr Oliver Krachet also from ThermoFisher Scientific, Bremen, Germany, took classes on "Applications in food control" and on "Elemental analyzer". Dr R D Deshpande from PRL, Ahmedabad, took class on "Introduction to IWIN Program" and Dr P Sanyal from IIT, Kharagpur, took class on "Variability of Indian monsoon over past 100 ka: implications to climate forcing on vegetation". Dr Aninda Manjumdar from NIO, Goa, took class on "Sulfur Isotopes study by IRMS Technique" and Dr C Unnikrishnan warrier from CWRDM, Calicut, took class on "Ground water turnover on coastal aquifer of Kerala". Mr Ravi Rangarajan from IISc, Banglore , took class on "High Precision 18-O Measurement using Gas Bench II" and Dr saxena/Dr Pande from ONGC, Dehradun, took class on IRMS facility at ONGC for Oil Exploration". The concluding remarks was done by Er Ram Mhatre, ThermoFisher Scientific, Mumbai. This program ended with a viisitto IRMS laboratory at CWRDM.

Mass spectrometry is one of the oldest instrumental analytical methods led to the discovery of stable isotopes. It is now used in Hydrology, Agronomy, Oceanography,Climatology, Criminology, Environmental Pollution studies, Oil exploration etc. Positive rays were discovered by Goldstein in 1886 using a low-pressure electrical discharge tube. Thomson's presentation of his Positive Ray Analyzer data in 1912 confirmed the isotopic structure of matter. In 1919 Aston developed a more elaborate instrument, positive ray spectrograph(Aston's Mass Spectrograph). This instrument used magnetic and electric fields to separate ions of different mass and focus them with respect to velocity. He achieved a resolution similar to that of a modern gas isotope ratio mass spectrometer, and ten times better than Thomson's mass spectrometer. The period 1927-1932 saw the discovery of S-32, S-33, and S-34 followed by C-13, O-18, O-17, N-15 and D. In 1930s, stable isotopes were separated and used as biological tracers. Norman and Werkman in 1943 conducted agronomic research on Nitrogen uptake of soyabeans using N15 isotope. Modern stable isotope geochemistry began in 1947 with the outstanding work of Harold Urey explaining and quantifying isotope fractionation effects and natural abundance levels. In the same year Alfred Nier published a description of his gas source mass spectrometer for precise isotope determination. By 1957, members of Urey's group had characterized the instrument, increased the range of applications on isotopic variations in nature and established rigorous procedures for correction and standardization of data and later H Craig' supplemented their works. The commercial development of Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometers occurred in 1960s and 1970s.

Mass spectrometer is an instrument ionizes gaseous molecules and separates the ions into a spectrum according to their mass-to-charge ratio, m/z, using electric and magnetic fields. The relative abundance of the molecules of different m/z are then found by measuring the currents generated by these separated ion beams. The mass spectrometer consists of an ion source to ionize the gas sample, an electrical field to accelerate the ions, a magnetic field perpendicular to the electric field to bend the ions into circular paths of different radii depending on their masses and finally an ion collector for each ion beam of given mass value. All these parts of the mass spectrometers are evacuated to pressures of the order of 10e-6 to 10e-9 mbar. Here the whole IRMS is flushed with inert Helium gas in order to protect the electron producing filament in the ion source against oxidation. Moreover Helium has good diffusion coefficient and acts as an excellant pushing and guiding agent for the sample gas once gets into the sample cell and introduces into mass spectrometer. Both solid and liquid samples has to be converted in to gaseous form by suitable methods before introducing it into the ionization chamber. where they are bombarded by a stream of high energy electrons and as a result the molecules will be converted into positively charged ions. These ions are accelerated by a positive electrical potential and pass through mass analysers which is a strong electromagnet where the ions are dispersed based on their m/z ratios and takes different curved trajectories as they emerge out of the analyser. This is called mass spectrum. These ions enters in to ion detector which consists of special type of charge collectors called Faraday cups located at specific positions to collect the ions of perticular m/z value and it is transmitted into the data processing computer. The absolute abundance ratio of isotopes is not usually measured in natural waters and in other natural compounds. Only the relative difference in the ratio of the heavy isotope to the more abudant light isotope of the sample with respect to a standard is determined and it is denoted by Greek letter delta and expressed in the unit of per mil.

It can be shown that the radius r of any ion beam is proportional to the square root of the ion mass m, The collectors produce electrical currents I proportional to the intensities of the beam and the ratios of these currents are converted into isotope ratios. Precise measurement of isotope ratios require special type of mass spectrometer called Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer (IRMS). There are differences between IRMS and a regular organic mass spectrometer. In both instruments, the sample is ionized by electrons in the source, ions are accelerated down a flight tube between the poles of a magnet, and they are deflected in proportion to their mass-to-charge ratio. But in organic mass spectrometer, the ion beam is swept over a slit by varying either the accelerating voltage or the strength of the magnetic field so that a mass spectrum is recorded. In isotope ratio mass spectrometer, conditions are held constant throughout the analysis and the relative intensity of two or more ion beams are measured simultaneously. Isotope ratio mass spectrometers typically cover the m/z range 1-100. IRMS is designed to produce strong steady beams in low-noise Faraday cups to give high precision. Samples are simple gases like H2, CO2, N2, and SO2 requiring only low resolving power. Organic mass spectrometers, on the other hand, often need much greater resolution to separate closely spaced peeks at high mas and must accept even little signal available and the non linear response of electron multiplier detectors.

Fisher Scientific was founded in 1902 by Chester G Fisher and Thermo electron was established in 1956 by George Hatsopoulos. In November 2006 the two companies merged and ThermoFisher SCIENTIFIC became the world leader in serving sciences, enabling the customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. They provide employment over 30,000 employees and serve over 350,000 customers with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, as well as environmental and industrial process control settings. The Thermo Scientific brand represents a complete range of high-end analytical instruments as well as laboratory equipments, softwares, services, consumables and reagents to enable integrated laboratory work flow solutions. Fisher Scientific provides a complete portfolio of laboratory equipments, chemicals, supplies and services used in health care, scientific research, safety and education.
With Best Wishes
ktv