Combustion Analysis and Devolatilazation Kinetics of Gmelina, Mango, Neem and Tropical Almond Woods under Oxidative Condition

Abstract

Thermogravimetric method was used to study the devolatilization characteristics and kinetics of Gmelina wood ( Gmelina arborea ), Mango wood ( Mangifera indica ), Neem wood ( Azadiracta indica ) and Tropical Almond wood ( Terminalia catappa ) under synthetic air condition at the heating rate of 30 o C/min. It was observed that all the samples followed a two-stage reaction mechanism between 200 o C and 500 o C clearly indicating regions of volatile oxidation and char combustion. The maximum rate of weight loss (%/ o C) are 2.20, 1.50, 1.25 and 1.60 for Gmelina wood, Mango wood, Neem wood and Tropical almond wood respectively and occurred at peak temperatures of 310 o C, 322 o C, 320 o C and 320 o C in the same order of sample presentation. During the oxidative stage, the activation energy of the samples, based on the Arrhenius correlation are 125,108, 142 and 113 KJ/mol respectively while during the char combustion stage the activation energy are 257, 210, 281 and 345 KJ/mol in that same order. This shows that the samples would require less energy input for their thermochemical conversion to bioenergy and would not pose any barrier to their use in combustion reactors. The samples are thus good potential feedstock among the league of biomass resources for present and future bioenergy fuels