Standard Guide for Exposing and Testing Plastics that Degrade in the Environment by a Combination of Oxidation and Biodegradation

Importancia y uso:

5.1 This guide is a sequential assembly of extant but unconnected standard tests and practices for the oxidation and biodegradation of plastics, which will permit the comparison and ranking of the overall rate of environmental degradation of plastics that require thermal or photooxidation to initiate degradation. Each degradation stage is independently evaluated to allow a combined evaluation of a polymer’s environmental performance under a controlled laboratory setting. This enables a laboratory assessment of its disposal performance in, soil, municipal or industrial compost, landfill, and water and for use in agricultural products such as mulch film without detriment to that particular environment.

Note 5: For determining biodegradation rates under municipal or industrial composting conditions, Specification D6400 is to be used, including test methods and conditions as specified.

5.2 The correlation of results from this guide to actual disposal environments (for example, agricultural mulch films, municipal or industrial composting, or landfill applications) has not been determined, and as such, the results should be used only for comparative and ranking purposes.

5.3 The results of laboratory exposure cannot be directly extrapolated to estimate absolute rate of deterioration by the environment because the acceleration factor is material dependent and can be significantly different for each material and for different formulations of the same material. However, exposure of a similar material of known outdoor performance, a control, at the same time as the test specimens allows comparison of the durability relative to that of the control under the test conditions.

Subcomité:

D20.96

Referida por:

D7444-18A, D7475-20

Volúmen:

08.03

Número ICS:

83.080.01 (Plastics in general)

Palabras clave:

biodegradation; ecotoxicity; environmental degradation; oxidation; photooxidation; thermal;