Determination of salutary parameters to facilitate bio-energy production from three uncommon biomasses using thermogravimetric analysis

Abstract

Fuels derived from biomass are renewable as well as environment friendly. In this study, three biomasses viz. husk of areca nut (Areca catheu), trunks of moj (Albizzia lucida), and bon bogori (Ziziphus rugosus) available in North-East region of India were tested as potential biofuel sources. The accentuation of this study was to determine the kinetic parameters using thermogravimetric (TG) technique under air and nitrogen atmosphere. The experiments were carried out within temperature range 300–973 K under air and nitrogen atmosphere at four different heating rates viz. 5, 10, 15, and 20 K min−1, respectively. The mass losses at different lumps in the TG graphs were estimated. The first-order kinetic parameters such as activation energy and pre-exponential factor were calculated for different reaction zones for all the three biomass samples. Effects of atmosphere on combustion characteristics (e.g., peak temperature, ignition temperature, and reactivity index) of biomasses were also determined in this study. Areca nut husk has highest ignition temperature (526.38 K) and reactivity index (0.21) but moj has highest peak temperature (597.91 K) along with highest activation energy (348.04 kJ mol−1) and pre-exponential factor (1.12 × 1024 min−1), respectively.