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 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 CO2 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 CO2 cocktail method for analyzing biobased products.