ISO 15985:2004 is a method for simulating an intensive anaerobic digestion process and determining the ultimate biodegradability and degree of disintegration of a test material under high-solids anaerobic digestion conditions.

Methanogenic inoculum is obtained from anaerobic digesters operating on organic fraction of pretreated household waste. The test material is mixed with inoculum and introduced into a static digestion vessel where it is digested under optimum temperature and moisture conditions for a test period of 15 days or until a plateau in biodegradation has been reached. The biogas production is continuously monitored in test and blank vessels to determine the total biogas production.

Percentage biodegradation is given by the ratio of the amount of biogas evolved from the test material to the maximum theoretical amount of biogas that can be produced from the test material. This percentage biodegradation does not include the amount of carbon converted to new cell biomass which is not metabolised to biogas.

BPC Blue is a fully automated biodegradability testing system suitable for ISO 15985. It allows for continuous and on-line monitoring of released biogas (CH₄ and CO₂) and is a fully integrated and automated system for sampling, analysing, recording, and generating reports. BPC Blue is the perfect analytical tool that offers standardised measurement procedures, data interpretations and reports.