Thermal behavior and kinetic study on the co-pyrolysis of biomass with polymer waste

• Published in: Biomass conversion and biorefinery 2024, Vol.14 (2), p.1651-1662
• Main Authors: Yao, Zhitong, Cai, Di, Chen, Xinyang, Sun, Yuhang, Jin, Meiqing, Qi, Wei, Ding, Jiamin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomass; Biotechnology; Compensation; Correlation coefficients; Energy; Epoxy resins; Hydrogen; Lignocellulose; Original Article; Pyrolysis; Raw materials; Renewable and Green Energy; Solid wastes; Thermodynamic properties; Thermogravimetric analysis
• ISSN: 2190-6815; 2190-6823
• DOI: 10.1007/s13399-022-02480-7

The intrinsic smaller hydrogen to carbon (H/C) ratio for lignocellulosic biomass significantly affects the yield and production of target products. Co-pyrolyzing of biomass with hydrogen-rich chemicals or raw materials offers an alternative pathway to improve the H/C ratio of feedstock and thus upgrade the bio-oils. In this work, the co-pyrolysis of rice husk (RH) with epoxy resin (ER) was attempted, and its kinetic was comprehensively studied using the model-free and model-fitting methods. The co-pyrolysis mechanism and kinetic compensation effects were probed as well. The thermogravimetric analysis indicated that the decomposition of RH-ER blend with a weight ratio of 1:1 can be divided into three stages with heating temperatures of 27–270, 270–500, and 500–850 °C and corresponding mass loss of 6.86, 49.30, and 5.60%, respectively. For the model-free models applied, the activation energies (Ea) displayed an uptrend in the degree of conversion (α) range of 0.05–0.2 and a downtrend in α range of 0.2–0.6. Comparing the six methods, the Ea values from Friedman method was significantly larger than those from other models. The Flynn–Wall–Ozawa (FWO) method was more reliable with higher correlation coefficients. The obtained Ea values gradually increased from 65.06 to 159.55 kJ/mol (0.05 ≤ α ≤ 0.20) and then decreased to 38.32 kJ/mol (0.2