BS ISO 23832:2021 pdf download.Plastics — Test methods for determination of degradation rate and disintegration degree of plastic materials exposed to marine environmental matrices under laboratory conditions.
4 Principle
This document describes three laboratory test methods:
a) Method A: Sand burial degradation test;
b) Method B: Sediment/seawater interface degradation test; and
c) Method C: Seawater degradation test.
These three test methods are based on the exposure of plastic samples to environmental matrices taken from the sea and on the measurement of physical degradation.
These three test methods differ for the exposure conditions.
In Method A, the plastic samples are buried in a wet sandy sediment (a condition similar to the sandy shoreline where beach is maintained wet by the waves and tides).
In Method B, the plastic samples are laid at the interface between a sandy sediment bed and a water column (a condition similar to the seabed where most debris sinks, accumulates, and undergoes degradation).
In Method C, the plastic samples are exposed to seawater.
The degradation rate of the plastic material can be measured as:
a) mass loss and/or
b) erosion and/or
c) tensile properties decay.
6.2 Preparation of the sediment and seawater Remove, manually or by sieving, stones, pebbles and other materials until a clean marine sediment is obtained . Filter the sediment in a funnel with a coarse filter paper to eliminate excess seawater. Sediment is ready for testing when seawater dripping stops. Sediment after filtering is named “wet sediment” hereafter and ready for Method A and Method B. Natural seawater is directly used without filtration.
7 Apparatus 7.1 General Polypropylene boxes or domestic aquariums (i.e. fish tanks for hobbyists) are suitable for the purposes of this document. However, if the test material is made with plastics expected to have degradation properties similar to the plastics used in the aquarium, glass should be used. See Figure 1 for a schematic representation of the tanks, which can be used to carry out the test methods.
8.2 Reference material
The following can be used as a reference material:
a) polycaprolactone (PCL) 1) , or
b) ashless cellulose filter (e.g. filter paper Whatman® n. 42 2) ), or
c) pure cotton (for example 100 % cotton gauze),
d) or poly-ß-hydroxybutyrate.
Prepare and characterize samples using the same procedure used for test materials (see 8.1). Form,size, and thickness of samples should be comparable to that of the test material. Report characteristics of reference material (density, etc.) in the test report.BS ISO 23832 pdf download.