EN 15440 Testing for Solid Recovered Fuels

Solid recovered fuels or refuse-derived fuels are solid fuels processed from non-hazardous waste used for energy recovery in incineration or co-incineration plants. They can be household wastes or those from commercial or industrial plants.

The European Commission's 2002 mandate to the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) describes SRFs as 'may be composed of a variety of materials of which some, although recyclable, may have been made available in such a form that recycling is not environmentally sound. On the one hand materials collected and/or sorted and prepared into a recyclable form should not be considered as SRFs. On the other hand recyclable materials should not be excluded from SRFs because such an exclusion could lead to disposal of these materials and wastage of the resources embedded in them.'

The 2002 mandate led to the development of CEN/TS 15440, which initially outlined the methods for the determination of biomass content of SRF through selective dissolution method, the manual sorting method, and the reductionistic method.

EN 15440 acknowledged that the SDM is not applicable to some materials usually or possibly present in SRF and its limitations have to be considered. In recognition of these shortcomings, CEN developed a technical report for the determination of biomass content in SRF based on the radiocarbon dating method, and CEN 15591 was born. The CEN 15591 was approved in January 2007, and this technical report became a standard in 2008 in the form of CEN/TS 15747 as developed by the European CEN 343 Working Group.

CEN Working Group 343 later published EN 15440:2011, a revised version of the previous document. The EN 15440 standard no longer includes the reductionistic method and specifies 3 methods based on carbon-14 analysis for determining the biomass or biogenic carbon content of SRF. The carbon-14 content of SRF can be measured via Proportional Scintillation Method (PSM), Beta Ionisation (BI), or Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS).

Today, EN 15440 is the standard being used by the European Union Emission Trading Scheme to monitor refuse-derived fuels.
Radiocarbon dating, although more accurate than the manual sorting method and the selective dissolution method in determining the biomass fraction of RDF, cannot directly measure the biomass calorific value. This calorific value is important for green certificate programs like the Renewable Obligation Certificate program in the United Kingdom.

Sampling Procedure for EN 15440

The prevailing sampling protocols within an industry can be used when obtaining samples for EN 15440 testing. There are also CEN standards available specific for solid recovered fuel sampling:

• EN 15442 and EN 15443 – Sampling, transport, storage of the solid recovered fuel and sample preparation in the field
• EN 15413 – Preparation of the test sample (lab sample)

These standards are available for a fee from CEN affiliates and national standard organizations in your country (list available in CEN website).

European Union Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS)

The EU ETS is the largest multi-country greenhouse gas emissions trading system in the world. Under the EU ETS, large emitters of carbon dioxide within the EU must monitor and annually report their CO2 emissions. They are obliged to submit to the government an amount of emission allowances that is equivalent to their CO2 emissions in that year.
Phase 1 of the EU ETS was released in January 2005, while Phase 2 started in 2008. The EU ETS is now in its third phase, which runs from 2013 to 2020.