The Company Agroisolab

Agroisolab GmbH a commercial stable isotope laboratory, is a spinoff of the German Research Center Jülich and was founded in 2002. Its main working field is to check the authenticity of a variety of agricultural and natural products using the stable isotopes e.g. the origin.

Legal and custom authorities, traders, producers, retailers and associations take advantage of our expertise.

Up to now, Agroisolab GmbH is one of the few laboratories worldwide offering the analysis of isotopes of all bioelements i.e. hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur.

Therefore, Agroisolab GmbH has built up more than 150 different databases to check the origin of products from all over the world.

Since 2006 Agroisolab is an accredited laboratory according to DIN EN ISO / IEC 17025:2018

At the moment, Agroisolab GmbH is a member of the Stable isotopic working group of the GDCH as well.

Agroisolab GmbH checks the stable isotope method in round robin tests and proficiency tests, for instance from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), who is providing the international stable isotope standards. Furthermore, Agroisolab is providing own round robin test free of charges for more than 30 stable isotopic laboratories in the world.

Equipment of the laboratory

Agroisolab operates one of the largest stable isotopic laboratories in the world, equipped with 14 Isotopic Mass Spectrometers (IRMS) for analysing stable isotopic ratios in both water (including tissue water) and organic compounds (e.g. sugar, raw proteins and fat). The laboratory uses advanced equipment and methods as well as own developed technologies ( e.g. Zero-Blank-Autosampler, AILTECH), including:

13C12C: Elementanalyser (EA) in combination with IRMS (Horizon, NU-Instruments)
15N/14N: Elementanalyser (EA) in combination with IRMS (Horizon, NU-Instruments)
34S/32S: Elementanalyser (EA) in combination with IRMS (Isoprime, Elementar)
2H/1H(liquid): EA (Chrom-mode) in combination with IRMS (Isoprime, Elementar)
18O/16O(liquid): Multiflow (Equilibration-mode) in combination with IRMS (Isoprime, Elementar)
2H/1H(org.): High Temperature Pyrolysis (1550°C, Agroisolab patented) in combination with IRMS (Horizon, NU-Instruments)
18O/16O(org.): High Temperature Pyrolysis (1550°C, Agroisolab patented) in combination with IRMS (Horizon, NU-Instruments)
13C/12C (GC): Gas Chromatography (GC) - combustion in combination with IRMS (Isoprime, Elementar)
2H/1H(org.): Gas Chromatography (GC) - pyrolysis in combination with IRMS (Isoprime, Elementar)
2H/1H (water): Cavity Ringdown Spectroscopy (CRDS) from Los Gatos Research

Since its founding in 2002, Agroisolab has developed numerous national and international stable isotopic databases (universal). Those stable isotopic databases are used by both private businesses and authorities to verify the origin of products.