Technical specifications on SRF nearly finalised

The following article is cited from EEP Newsletter and describes the actual situation from the perspective of Martin Frankenhäuser, the chairman of CEN TC 343, who spend a lot of time and effort to make this work starting and going on.

CEN, the European Committee for Standardization, is preparing a new classification system for solid recovered fuels (SRF). The technical specifications will be published soon, predicts the Finnish Recycling Magazine Uusiouutiset.

"All significant technical specifications have been unanimously approved in the votes", says Martin Frankenhaeuser, the Finnish chairman of the CEN’s Technical Committee on Solid Recovered Fuels. The vote was preceded by three years of detailed preparation.

Preliminary standards will be published after final editing, probably in June. This will be followed by an evaluation process, during which the functioning of the specifications will be verified. Sampling, quality control and analyses will be tested in practice to make sure that the results are comparable and within the margin for error. Depending on the outcome, possible changes will be addressed in 2007. Frankenhaeuser believes that the final standards will be published within the next few years.

According to Uusiouutiset, European standards for SRF are sorely needed, as current national practices vary considerably. This has caused problems, especially in international trading of recovered fuels.

The technical specifications classify the SRF by thermal value, chlorine content and mercury content. For example, the thermal value class will be based on the number of megajoules one kilogram of recovered fuel contains on arrival. The system divides the thermal value, chlorine content and mercury content into five categories.

In addition, there are many characteristics for which no specific values have been determined. Instead, they can be agreed upon between the producer and the purchaser of SRF.

Along with the standardization process, a validation project called QUOVADIS on solid recovered fuels is currently being implemented. Half of it is financed by the EU Commission under the 6th Framework Programme within the Intelligent Energy Systems for Europe Project. The three-year project is now in its second year.

(Finnish Recycling News Uusiouutiset, Finland)