Isotopic Analysis of Sugarcane/Petroleum Polyethylene Blends: A Perspective on the Application of Stable Isotope Method (δ13C)

In the present work, we propose the application of stable isotope analysis ( δ 13C) as an auxiliary tool for the inspection of sugarcane/petroleum polyethylene blends. Our results are supported from the analysis of selected samples by accelerator mass spectrometry (14C-AMS). From the results, it was concluded that the δ 13C method is suitable to discriminate samples derived from sugarcane, petroleum, or its blends. It was also noted that both regression models ( δ 13C method and the δ 13C vs 14C-AMS regression) presents potential to estimate the bio-based content; however, future work should focus on validating these models. From the screening model, developed with δ 13C data, 33.33% of the samples were highlighted as suspected of being out of specification. Thus, the screening method can identify samples most likely to be out of specification and reduce the demand for inspection of biogenic content following the ASTM D6866 standard (14C-AMS).
Source: Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research