Novel methodology for evaluation of cellulose pyrolysis kinetics implementing infrared spectroscopy in situ

Abstract

In the evaluation and development of lignocellulosic biomass pyrolysis chemical kinetics, one of the most uncertain aspects in modeling is the volatile species composition. This work proposes an in situ novel methodology to evaluate the kinetics of cellulose pyrolysis considering the representative functional groups of gas and volatile compounds produced during this process. This methodology (named IRKM) was based on the temporal monitoring of infrared absorption spectra for characteristic functional groups in volatile products and comparation with Ranzi et al. kinetic model, that describes the pyrolysis process for cellulose. Temperature range for cellulose pyrolysis (570–670 K), temperature in maximum decomposition (616 K) and activation energies and pre-exponential factors in reaction products determined by this new methodology and by thermogravimetry and gas chromatography matched with differences less than 5 %. This new methodology could be applied to measure temperature ranges for the production of volatiles and kinetics constants in another lignocellulosic biomass or using other kinetic models.