Determining the modern carbon content of biobased products using radiocarbon analysis

In support of the USDA Federal Biobased Products Preferred Procurement Program (FB4P), Iowa State University is coordinating testing to determine the “biobased content” of manufactured products. These tests are part of a process to “designate” items that qualify for preferential procurement status w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Bioresource technology 2006-11, Vol.97 (16), p.2084-2090
Main Authors:	Norton, Glenn A., Devlin, Steven L.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	14Carbon Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions Biobased content Biobased products Biological and medical sciences Carbon dating Carbon Radioisotopes - analysis Chemistry Techniques, Analytical - methods Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General agronomy. Plant production Manufactured Materials - analysis Manufactured Materials - standards Quality Control Radiocarbon analysis Use of agricultural and forest wastes. Biomass use, bioconversion
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Summary:	In support of the USDA Federal Biobased Products Preferred Procurement Program (FB4P), Iowa State University is coordinating testing to determine the “biobased content” of manufactured products. These tests are part of a process to “designate” items that qualify for preferential procurement status with federal agencies. Biobased content determinations are being performed using three radiocarbon dating procedures specified in ASTM D 6866-05. Test results obtained thus far indicate that the AMS and benzene synthesis methods provide comparable results. Data from the CO 2 cocktail method did not agree as well with the data from the other two methods, but were still in reasonably good agreement with those data. Radiocarbon analysis is shown to be a reliable and valuable tool for verifying the biobased content of a wide variety of biobased products. Based on inter- and intra-laboratory comparisons, a reasonable uncertainty to associate with the analyses would be ±3% (absolute) for the AMS and benzene synthesis methods. Because of limited data availability, additional work is needed to establish the uncertainty of the CO 2 cocktail method for analyzing biobased products.
ISSN:	0960-8524 1873-2976