How to determine consistent biomass pyrolysis kinetics in a parallel reaction scheme

This paper discusses a method for determining the kinetics of biomass pyrolysis based on comparing isoconversional methods, such as the Kissinger and KAS methods, and least squares fitting in a parallel reaction scheme with three pseudo-components roughly representing cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The activation energies of the different pseudo-components reported in the literature vary widely. This variation could be reduced if care were taken to determine the kinetics of biomass pyrolysis: First, the reference experiments with pure cellulose are reproduced to validate the thermogravimetric analysis. Then, experiments are performed and analyzed with different heating rates and isoconversional methods are employed to verify the reliability of the experiments and to avoid selecting inappropriate reaction models in a fitting routine. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.