STUDIES ON PYROLYSIS OF BIOMASS

Abstract

Groundnut shell, Eucalyptus and Poplar is pyrolysed in a thermogravimetric analyzer under nitrogen atmosphere to study its pyrolysis behavior for examining its industrial potential as energy resource. This report covered physico-chemical, thermal properties and thermal degradation characteristics in nitrogen atmosphere. The thermal degradation was conducted in a thermogravimetric analyzer from room temperature to 1000 °C at the heating rates 10, 20, 30 and 40 Kmin-1. The TG and DTG curves exhibited three degradation zones for eucalyptus roots and poplar roots, whereas DTG curves for groundnut shell and eucalyptus stem shows four and five degradation zones respectively. The second, third and fourth zones had the higher value of activation energy than the first zones, whereas values of activation energy for the overall degradation zones is very less. The kinetic analysis was carried out using several mechanistic models as well Agrawal and Sivasubramanian approximation from global degradation kinetics. The maximum rate devolatilization and the DTG peak shifted to higher values along with increase in heating rate. The value of various kinetic parameters like activation energy, pre-exponential factor and reaction order calculated for the formation of active complex. Groundnut shell has a very low activation energy as compared to the other biomass sample showed by Fuoss and Reich approximation and hence groundnut shell is preferable for the Pyrolysis over the other biomass sample