THE USE OF LIQUID SCINTILLATION COUNTING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE DETERMINATION OF BIOGENIC MATERIALS

ABSTRACT. Radiocarbon analysis was performed with a liquid scintillation counter to determine the amount of biogenic sources in fuels. Different fuel mixtures were prepared and a sample of pure 100 % bioethanol was used to prepare a calibra-tion curve. Excellent linearity was found for the calibration curve using counts per minute (CPM) and disintegrations per minute (DPM) protocols. Very small changes in the quench for most fuel samples containing less than 10 % bioethanol allowed the use of very simple CPM protocols without quench correction to determine accurate amounts of biofuel. These protocols were effective as long as the samples were colorless and detailed information about the chemical composition of the biogenic materials were available. Methods such as GC, NMR, and others can be used to analyze the biogenic samples. This paper only investigates biogenic samples containing bioethanol