14C-method – determination of biomass in waste

But those methods are not applicable to all kinds of sample. The manual sorting method fails if the constituents of the sample are shredded too finely, if they are strongly intertwined or compressed or if they may not be visually recognized. The selective dissolution method fails if biogenic constituents are present that do not dissolve, or fossil fuels that do. Both methods fail, if fossil and biogenic carbon are mixed on a molecular level. Therefore a 14C-based method will be suggested as an additional tool to manual sorting and selective dissolution. In the article details of the applied method will be presented and results for the biomass content of SRF samples derived by the 14C-method as well as with SDM will be shown.