Valorisation of Napier Grass and Agricultural Residues via Pyrolysis – A Kinetic Study

Thermal pyrolysis of Thai Napier grass, cassava stalk and rice straw were studied thermogravimetrically, which was followed by a kinetic analysis assuming multiple kinetic schemes and a distributed activation energy model (DAEM) with reaction order n = 1 and n ≠ 1. The results showed that the DAEM described well the experimental data. The assumption of multiple kinetic schemes appeared more reasonable than that of similar studies reported in the literature assuming a single kinetic scheme. Consequently, the kinetic parameters extracted from the present study are more realistic and within reasonable ranges. Overall, the activation energies are within 31.6–223.53 kJ mol-1. The reaction orders are within 1.02–1.32 for the assumption of n ≠ 1.