Prediction of gaseous products from biomass pyrolysis through combined kinetic and thermodynamic simulations

Due to the nonhomogeneous characteristics of biomass constituent, it has been known to be difficult to apply directly any simulation work to the pyrolysis of biomass for a precise prediction of gaseous products. In this study, two computation codes (HSC Chemistry for thermodynamic and Sandia PSR for kinetic simulations) were employed, to consider the integrated effects of thermodynamic and kinetic phenomena occurring in biomass pyrolysis on the distribution of gaseous products. The principle of simulation applied in this study was to extract substitutable gas phase compositions from HSC calculations, which were predicted thermodynamically. Then, the gas phase compositions were inputted into the Sandia PSR code to consider the potential constrains of kinetics involving in the pyrolysis and finally to get the distributions of gas products which should be closer to the realistic situation. Palm oil wastes, a local representative biomass, were studied as sample biomass. The gaseous products obtained from HSC calculations were mainly H₂, CO₂, CO, CH₄ and negligible C₂₊ hydrocarbons. After applying these products into PSR program, the final products developed into H₂, CO₂, CO, CH₄, C₂H₂, C₂H₄, C₂H₆ and C₃H₈ which are more realistic products in the modern fast pyrolysis.