🔥 Loss on ignition of the dry mass of sludge — PN-EN 12879 (standard WITHDRAWN; the regulation describes the activity without citing a standard)

Environment PN-EN 12879

Overview

STATUS OF THE DOCUMENT: STANDARD WITHDRAWN. The PKN catalogue card gives: "Number: PN-EN 12879:2004 - Polish version", "Title: Characterization of sludges -- Determination of the loss on ignition of dry mass", "Publication date: 17-09-2004", "Withdrawal date: 01-07-2016", "Implements: EN 12879:2000 [IDT]", "Replaces: PN-EN 12879:2002 - English version". The card has the heading "Withdrawn" and does not contain the row "Replaced by".

SCALE OF CITATIONS. From the measurement on 62 896 entries of accreditation scopes: the standard is cited by 20 laboratories in 23 entries, with the methodology described as "Loss on ignition of the dry residue (content of organic substances)" and matrices that are wastes with codes 19 08 05, 19 08 13* and 20 03 06.

WE CHECKED THE NEAREST CANDIDATE FOR SUCCESSOR — AND WE DO NOT CONFIRM IT. Closest in scope is PN-EN 15935 "Soil, waste, treated biowaste and sludge — Determination of loss on ignition" (it has its own entry in this database). The card of PN-EN 15935:2022-01 lists in the "Replaces" field: PN-EN 15935:2013-02 in both versions and PN-EN 15169:2011 together with the corrigendum — PN-EN 12879 IS NOT listed there. The card of the earlier edition PN-EN 15935:2013-02 has no "Replaces" row at all. Succession therefore does not follow from the cards, although the scope of both standards concerns loss on ignition — and that is why we do not enter this link. State of the check: 22-09-2026.

WHAT APPLIES TODAY — AN ACTIVITY DESCRIBED WITHOUT A STANDARD. The Regulation of the Minister of the Environment on the use of municipal sewage sludge (consolidated text Journal of Laws 2023 item 23) in the annex with reference methodologies for testing sludge gives (our translation of the Polish text): "Loss on ignition of the dry mass of sludge (content of organic compounds in the dry mass of sludge) — ignition at a temperature of 550 °C, weighing (gravimetric method, the content of organic compounds is calculated from the loss in weight after ignition at a temperature of 550 °C, the organic substance is the difference in mass before and after ignition)". In the whole text of this regulation the number "12879" does not appear even once — and "15935" also does not appear even once. CHECKED BY A SECOND ROUTE ON 22.09.2026: we extracted from the whole act (11 pages, consolidated text Journal of Laws 2023 item 23) ALL strings that could be a document designation — "PN-…", "ISO …", "EN …" and every five-digit number. THERE ARE NONE THERE: in this place the act cites not only neither of our two standards, but it cites NO standard at all. We have been doing it this way since it turned out that a standard number is sometimes split in an act by OCR and a negative result of a search by number proves nothing. The methodology is therefore described in terms of activities, without a reference document: this is the same state as for temperature measurement and for the photocolorimetric determination of nitrates in the regulation on waste water.

THE PRECEDING DETERMINATION, WITHOUT WHICH THE RESULT MAKES NO SENSE. The same annex gives in the adjacent row: "Dry residue and water content — drying at a temperature of 105 °C, weighing". Loss on ignition refers to the DRY MASS, so the sample must first be dried at 105 °C; only the difference in mass before and after ignition at 550 °C gives the content of organic substance. The two rows of the annex therefore describe one sequence, not two independent tests.

A LEAD THAT WE HAVE NOT CONFIRMED. During the search, information appeared that a DRAFT amendment to the regulation was to replace the parameter "loss on ignition of the dry mass of sludge" with the parameter "content of organic compounds in the dry mass of sludge" together with a reference to PN-EN 15935. In the 2023 consolidated text there is NO such reference — checked by searching for the number, zero hits. We know neither the content of the draft nor its fate (state as of 22-09-2026). If it were confirmed, it would be a case of a standard RETURNING to a legal act after years of absence — a situation that we have not encountered with any of the other standards described in this database.

WHAT WE DO NOT GIVE. We did not have the text of PN-EN 12879:2004 — the standard is withdrawn and is not on sale. We therefore do not know the test portion mass recorded in it, the ignition time, the constant mass criterion or the way of handling samples with a high content of organic substance. Everything written above about the way it is carried out comes from the regulation in force, not from the withdrawn standard. Nor have we established whether results obtained according to PN-EN 12879 and according to today's practice are comparable.

Method principle

The dried sludge sample is ignited at 550 °C and weighed. The content of organic substance is calculated from the loss of mass: the organic substance is the difference in mass before and after ignition, related to the dry mass of the sample. The determination therefore requires two gravimetric stages — drying at 105 °C to determine the dry mass and ignition at 550 °C to determine the loss.

The entry concerns the STATUS of the reference document; the description of the activity comes from the regulation in force, not from the withdrawn standard.

Applications

• Identifying an outdated citation of PN-EN 12879 in the accreditation scope of a laboratory
• Establishing that the regulation in force describes this determination without citing any standard
• Distinguishing this determination from loss on ignition according to PN-EN 15935 — a standard with a similar scope, which is NOT the successor of PN-EN 12879
• Reading reports and documentation dated before 01-07-2016 and issued later citing this standard
• Checking that the loss on ignition is related to the dry mass determined by drying at 105 °C

Key parameters

Standard

Standard number

PN-EN 12879:2004 (wersja polska; wprowadza EN 12879:2000 [IDT])

Title (PL)

Charakterystyka osadów ściekowych — Oznaczanie strat przy prażeniu suchej masy osadu

Title (EN)

Characterization of sludges — Determination of the loss on ignition of dry mass

Step-by-step procedure

1. Identifying the citation

   Find in the accreditation scope or in the report the number PN-EN 12879 (in scopes also found with the year 2004).

2. Checking the date of the document in which the citation stands

   A citation in a document dated before 01-07-2016 was correct at the time of issue; a later one is outdated, although the card does not indicate what to replace it with.

3. Not attributing succession to PN-EN 15935

   Do not enter PN-EN 15935 as the successor — this does not follow from the catalogue cards. Both standards concern loss on ignition, but PKN does not confirm a relation of succession between them.

4. Checking what the legal act requires

   Check the annex with reference methodologies in the regulation on municipal sewage sludge: the activity is described without citing a standard (ignition at 550 °C, weighing, calculation from the loss of mass).

5. Agreeing the reference document with the accreditation body

   Since the legal act does not indicate a standard, the reference document for this determination is agreed with the accreditation body; an alternative used in practice is to cite PN-EN 15935 as a current standard — but as an own choice of technique, not as the "successor" of the withdrawn standard.

6. Checking the sequence of determinations

   Make sure that the loss on ignition is related to the dry mass determined by drying at 105 °C — both rows of the annex describe one sequence, not two independent tests.

Required equipment and apparatus

Reagents, media and consumables

Health and safety (OHS)

• The entry concerns the status of the reference document, not a laboratory activity — the rules for working with a muffle furnace and hot crucibles are given in the laboratory procedure
• Testing must not be carried out according to a withdrawn standard with the result described as compliant with a reference document in force
• PN-EN 15935 must not be entered as the successor of PN-EN 12879 — succession does not follow from the catalogue cards, and stating such a link would be a statement without support in a document

Frequently asked questions