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CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS ANALYSIS

New environmental standards call for building materials to be partially composed of biobased products, both for new construction and renovations. Let’s discover together the usefulness of radiocarbon analysis of your building and road materials.

Physical and chemical analyses for building materials

CRIAM Laboratories assess the composition of your building materials to help you obtain the Karibati Biobased Product label. Our teams of scientists perform carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) analysis by AMS to define the percentage of biobased content of all your materials. Structure, carpentry, insulation, paints, panels or even roads, get the characterization of your construction materials thanks to CIRAM laboratories.

CIRAM, uses the standards
ASTM D6866-22
EN 16640 :2017
ISO 16620-2 :2019
EN 16785 :2016
ISO 21644 :2022

Qualify your materials to achieve the RE 2020 label

The 2012 thermal regulation, RT2012 has given way to the environmental regulation, RE 2020, which is more demanding in terms of construction materials, as it requires the use of biobased materials. It is then essential to quantify in the laboratory the biobased content of each typology of materials used in construction and roadways to meet the new regulations concerning carbon neutrality and the fight against climate change.

Even if your materials are mainly composed of biomass (frame, beam, insulation …), fire retardant or fungicidal treatments, for example, will modify their biobased content by the contribution of synthetic material. This is why carbon-14 analysis is necessary and sufficient to quantify the percentage of biobased material in your construction and road materials.

CIRAM laboratories

Thanks to CIRAM laboratories, you have a triple expertise for the characterization of your construction materials. Our engineers:

  • Measure the percentage of biobased and synthetic products in your building materials with radiocarbon analysis;
  • Check the impact of treatments on the biobased content of your building and road materials;
  • Certify: obtain ecolabels for your materials, based on our laboratory radiocarbon measurements. For example, your composite fence panels will have to be at least 24% biobased to get the Karibati biobased product label.

HIGH-QUALITY PHYSICOCHEMICAL ANALYSES
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Radiocarbon and stable isotope analyses

In order to deliver a complete and accurate analysis, CIRAM laboratories use radiocarbon (also called carbon 14) analysis by AMS in compliance with current standards such as ASTM D6866-22, EN 16640:2017 and EN 16785:2016.

Carbon 14 (or radiocarbon) analysis is an essential step, as it is the concentration of carbon 14 in your material that will allow you to conclude on the level of biobased carbon. So it is the carbon-14 concentration that we will measure to know if your insulation, paint, or bitumen contains 10, 50, or 100 e biobased products.

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Standards in force to certify the quality of our analyses

CIRAM laboratories have been working for more than seventeen years on the analysis and physicochemical characterization of your building materials. To attest to the quality of our expertise, we use the following standards:

  • EN 16640:2017: this is the European standard concerning the determination of biobased carbon content by the radiocarbon (or carbon-14) method;
  • EN 16785:2016: European standard concerning the determination of biobased content by carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) analysis and an elemental analysis.
  • ASTM S6866-22, American standard for the analysis of the biobased content of materials by the carbon-14 method

With these standards, we certify not only the quality, but also the reliability and accuracy of our analyses.

CIRAM, leader in carbon-14 analysis

CIRAM specializes in state-of-the-art radiocarbon dating using state-of-the-art equipment and recognized scientists. We follow the same procedures and standards in force as public sector laboratories.

We analyze and certify the biobased content of your industrial products, whatever your sector of activity: agrifood, biofuel, bioplastics, biopolymers, CSR, cosmetics. For more information, contact us and discover all the physico-chemical analyses we perform in our laboratory.

Discover CIRAM’s other fields of expertise: