Pyrolysis Kinetics of Pine Sawdust in a Fixed Bed

In today’s world, due to the worries about climate change stemming from increasing greenhouse gas emissions, much attention has been given to the use of lignocellulosic biomasses as renewable raw materials in thermo chemical processes such as combustion, gasification and pyrolysis for energy production. Thermal decomposition kinetics of biomass are a key component in the efficient design of thermo chemical processes for the conversion of biomass into energy or products. Since the chemical transformation by pyrolysis of solid biomasses into numerous products is highly dependent on the decompositionrates, accurate kinetic models are needed in order to best design these processes. In this work, pyrolysis behaviour of pine sawdust was investigated experimentally in a fixed bed system enabling mass measurements under nitrogen as sweeping gas. 1.000 g sample was used in each test and the runs were carried out at heating rates of 10, 20, and 30°C/min from room to 500°C temperatures. Conversion ratios of pine sawdust, calculated from mass recordings, were used in themost important model functions given in the literature for decomposition of biomasses. It was observed that activation energies obtained by Coats-Redfern method increased with heating rate.