Physical contamination (especially plastic) in composts and digestates is of growing concern to operators, environmental regulators and wider stakeholders. 

Through reseach projects spanning more than 10 years we have developed considerable expertise/experience in the analysis of composts, digestates and other matrices. 

Standard physical contaminant analysis involves the manual separation of physical contaminant fragments in >1 or 2 mm (depending on the matrix) size fractions. We can then report recovered contaminants on the basis of mass, surface area and size. 

Further analysis can include the use of basic screening for the relative abundance of compostable/non-compostable plastic contaminants or more specialised spectroscopy based polymer determination.

Examples of our industry leading research can be found online. Alternatively get in contact to find out more. 

Stability is an important compost quality criterion. Recognised potential issues with unstable composts include risk of self-heating leading to fires, causing nuisance odours and attracting disease vectors. 

Compost stability can be assessed using a variety of tests ranging from biological to chemical and physical. Biological stability tests are currently most used, based on measuring CO2 production and/or O2 consumption, or heat production. 

At Solidsense Ltd, we are specialists in the assessment of compost (and other organic waste materials) stability assessment with experience and setup for a range of biological stability tests including dynamic and static CO2 based tests and self-heating tests. If you have a special project needing expert stability advice get in touch.