Abstract:
The carbon emissions trading market has created a need for standard methods for
the determination of biogenic content (chi(B)) in solid recovered fuels (SRF).
We compare the manual sorting (MSM) and selective dissolution methods (SDM), as
amended by recent research, for a range of process streams from a mechanical
biological treatment (MBT) plant. The two methods provide statistically
different biogenic content values, as expressed on a dry mass basis, uncorrected
for ash content. However, they correlate well (r(2) > 0.9) and the relative
difference between them was <5% for chi(B) between 21% (w)/W-d and 72% (w)/W-d
(uncorrected for ash content). This range includes the average SRF biogenic
content of ca. 68% (w)/W-d. Methodological improvements are discussed in light
of recent studies. The repeatability of the SDM is characterised by relative
standard deviations on triplicates of <2.5% for the studied population. (C) 2010
Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
