The biogenic content of process streams from mechanical-biological treatment plants producing solid recovered fuel. Do the manual sorting and selective dissolution determination methods correlate?

摘要

The carbon emissions trading market has created a need for standard methods for the determination of biogenic content (x_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 x_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.