Knowledge Based Bio-based Products` Pre-Standardization - Verification of the method for total carbon determination (ruggedness test) Intermediate report

Given document is an intermediate report that presents the current results of the verification test (so called ruggedness test) on the method to determine total carbon and eventually bio-based carbon content in various products that were collected from different suppliers. Determination of the biogenic carbon of a finished product includes three steps such as a representative sample preparation, its pretreatment and the C14 analysis of the sample. Our review on sampling standards was given in the Deliverable 3.1. The method to determine total carbon and biobased carbon content was reviewed in Deliverable 3.2 that is converted into the technical specifications CEN/TS 16640 "Bio-based products — Determination of the bio based carbon content of products using the radiocarbon method. Since the C14 determi-nation techniques are very accurate and extensively tested, we will verify only the total car-bon determination method which is based on a complete combustion of a material. The re-sults of the ruggedness test that are given in this report concern only the repeatability of the method. Several challenging products (volatile paints, volatile liquids, paint components, sun lotion and all its constituents were tested at the current stage of the ruggedness test). Obtained results on the total carbon fractions in each of analysed materials are in a good agreement with theoretical data (if known) and with data provided by products suppliers (when available). The results of our measurements indicate a very good repeatability. Current ruggedness test will continue further in order to validate the method on the next set of “difficult” products including biocomposites, biotextile, particle boards, ceramic and gaseous materials. After the ruggedness test will be completed, we initiate an interlaboratory test for further veri-fication of the method.