Insight into master plots method for kinetic analysis of lignocellulosic biomass pyrolysis

Abstract

The determination of the kinetic triplet including the activation energy, frequency factor, and kinetic mechanism function is a key objective in kinetic analysis of solid-state reactions like lignocellulosic biomass pyrolysis. The master plots method is usually used to determine the kinetic mechanism function once the activation energies as a function of conversion are estimated from an isoconversional method. A critical study of the master plots method has been performed by analyzing theoretically simulated processes with varying activation energies and frequency factors. The accuracy of the resulting kinetic mechanism function calculated by the master plots method is strongly dependent on the variation degree of the frequency factor with conversion and the conversion dependency of activation energy from isoconversional methods. The utilization of the master plots method without considering the variation degree of the frequency factor with conversion may result in misestimating kinetic mechanism function.