Development of a modified independent parallel reactions kinetic model and comparison with the distributed activation energy model for the pyrolysis of a wide variety of biomass fuels

• Published in: Bioresource technology Vol. 197; pp. 434 - 442
• Main Authors: Sfakiotakis, Stelios, Vamvuka, Despina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2015
• Subjects: Biofuels; Biomass; DAEM model; Heating; Hot Temperature; Industrial Waste; IPR model; Kinetics; Models, Theoretical; Pyrolysis kinetics; Thermogravimetry - instrumentation; Waste biomass; Wood; Woody residues; Waste biomass; Woody residues; IPR model; Pyrolysis kinetics; DAEM model
• ISSN: 0960-8524; 1873-2976
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.08.130

•TGA pyrolysis of residual biomass samples from municipal and industrial sector.•Development and assessment of a modified independent parallel reactions model (IPR).•Development and assessment of DAEM model: comparison with IPR models.•Better fitting and prediction results from the modified IPR model.•Very good fitting to the experimental data from DAEM model. The pyrolysis of six waste biomass samples was studied and the fuels were kinetically evaluated. A modified independent parallel reactions scheme (IPR) and a distributed activation energy model (DAEM) were developed and their validity was assessed and compared by checking their accuracy of fitting the experimental results, as well as their prediction capability in different experimental conditions. The pyrolysis experiments were carried out in a thermogravimetric analyzer and a fitting procedure, based on least squares minimization, was performed simultaneously at different experimental conditions. A modification of the IPR model, considering dependence of the pre-exponential factor on heating rate, was proved to give better fit results for the same number of tuned kinetic parameters, comparing to the known IPR model and very good prediction results for stepwise experiments. Fit of calculated data to the experimental ones using the developed DAEM model was also proved to be very good.