Kinetics of walnut shells through Pyrolysis Assessed as an alternative Bio fuel

Abstract

Biomass residues have potential to be used as an alternative solid fuel for various processes, also will be responsible for the optimization of the pyrolysis reaction processes, giving insight into the pyrolysis mechanisms and aiding in engineering efforts. There are different methods for production of bio-fuel from biomass residues; however before the production of bio-fuels from biomass it is important to understand their thermal degradation and kinetics. In the present work the Kinetics studies of four different walnut shells, namely, paper (PSW), thin (TSW), medium (MSW) and hard (HSW) shelled walnuts have been studied. Thermal degradation behaviour of walnut shells is investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under three different heating rates (30, 60 and 100 0Cmin−1 ) in an oxidizing atmosphere to understand the kinetic behavior. Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS) and Ozawa–Flynn–Wall (OFW) methods were used to estimate the kinetic parameters such as Pre-exponential factor (R) and average activation energy (Ea ) using TGA data of active zone. The average activation energy of biomass obtained from PSW, TSW, MSW and HSW using KAS method were 198.25, 184.21, 180.93, and 152.79 kJ mol−1 , respectively. Whereas by OFW method the values were found to be 204.10, 186.28, 188.39 and 153.78 kJ mol−1 respectively. Thus the present investigation may be useful for its use as a renewable energy source and potential candidate for fuel production by thermo-chemical processes.