Pre-treatment of river sediment and soil samples for cosmogenic isotope analyses (¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al) includes purification steps to obtain pure quartz sands prior to dissolution and element separation by ion chromatography column chemistry. From sieved samples, minerals are separated by magnetic separation and/or heavy liquids, and silicate and oxide minerals are chemically separated from quartz by leaching with acids (HF, HCl, HNO₃) at elevated temperatures.

The Isotope Geochemistry Labs are equipped with a clean room facility (including several low-blank chemistry laboratories (class 100), sample preparation and ion-exchange chromatography, a set up for isotope systems: Pb, U-Pb, Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd as well as B and Li isotopes), two thermal ionization mass-spectrometers (TIMS) and a multi-collector mass-spectrometer with inductively coupled plasma source (MC-ICP-MS).

For quantification of organic (e.g. acetate, formate) and inorganic anions (e.g. chloride, sulfate) in aqueous samples ion exchange chromatography is used.
The quantification of the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in aqueous samples and chromatographic separation of the DOC into different fractions and quantification of these fractions in aqueous samples is done via liquid chromatography – organic carbon detection (LC-OCD).