24 September 2018

The research team at Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences led by Prof Jürgen Poerschke has succeeded in developing a third DIN standard for the representative sampling of waste.

The standard "E DIN 54389 Solid recovered fuels - Obtaining representative laboratory samples from heterogeneous materials after bale sampling" makes it possible to produce a representative sample for quality assurance of pressed waste in the form of bales. This means that the contents of the sample correspond to the contents of the bale. This method can be used to monitor and optimise sorting, recycling or secondary fuel production processes more precisely. The basis for this is a randomised selection of drilling points and a sufficiently large number of random samples to increase sample reliability.

The standard was preceded by a project funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and a cooperative doctoral programme with Clausthal University of Technology, which Dr Christian Borowski was successfully defended in March 2018.

This German standard marks the end of a lengthy work process to the complete satisfaction of Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences. In future, this standard is to be converted into an international ISO standard. This once again emphasises the university's leading scientific position in the field of representative sampling.

You can find all the details in the following publication:

Borowski, Christian: Development of methods and drilling techniques for random volume element extraction from bales. Dissertation. 1st edition. Clausthal-Zellerfeld: Papierflieger Verlag GmbH, 2018. ISBN 978-3-86948-631-4