Interactions among biomass components during co-pyrolysis in (macro)thermogravimetric analyzers

The interactions of biomass components (hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin) during co-pyrolysis were investigated in a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) as well as a self-designed Macro-TGA with higher heating rate and larger amount of sample. The overlap ratio (OR) was used to evaluate the interaction of biomass components quantitatively. In TGA, the pyrolysis of xylan was not significantly affected by cellulose, whereas the pyrolysis of cellulose was markedly influenced by xylan. The interactions between xylan and lignin were weak with an overlap ratio of 0.9869, whereas co-pyrolysis of cellulose and lignin was strongly inhibited by interactions with the overlap ratio of 0.9737. In Macro-TGA, interactions between components were stronger than that in TGA due to more considerable heat and mass transfer effect.