Evaporation-induced copper isotope fractionation: Insights from laser levitation experiments

Abstract

As a transition metal that is moderately volatile at high temperatures, copper shows limited isotopic fractionation in terrestrial mantle-derived rocks but significant enrichment in its heavier isotope (up to 12.5‰ for 65Cu/63Cu) in objects that experienced volatile loss during formation, such as tektites, trinitite glasses, and lunar rocks. Previous efforts to model the Cu isotope fractionation trend from measurements of δ65Cu in tektites found that the trend cannot be explained by the theoretical isotope fractionation factor (α) for free evaporation of Cu, making it necessary to experimentally study Cu isotope fractionation under conditions similar to tektite formation.

Here we present new experimental data of elemental (Na, K, Cu) and isotopic (Cu) fractionation during evaporation. Our experiments, conducted by laser-heating an aerodynamically levitated glass sphere to 1750, 2000, and 2150 °C, show rapid loss of Na, K, and Cu from the molten glass. In particular, > 99.99% of Cu was lost within 60 seconds. The evaporation induced loss of Cu is accompanied by progressive enrichment in its heavier isotope in the residue glass, with a maximum fractionation in δ65Cu of ∼18‰ relative to the synthesized initial sample. The empirical fractionation factor (α) calculated from our laser levitation data is 0.9960 ± 0.0002. Compared to similar experiments conducted for Zn, Cu appears to be significantly more volatile and show higher degrees of Cu isotope fractionation, consistent with observations in natural tektites. Comparing isotopic fractionation in a range of moderately volatile elements among laser levitation experiments, tektites, trinitites, and the bulk silicate Moon suggest that they experienced evaporation under various degrees of effective vapor saturation (∼74%, 93%, ∼99%, ∼99%), which depart significantly from free-evaporation (0%).