Study of sawdust pyrolysis and its devolatilisation kinetics

Pyrolysis of sawdust was studied using a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) to understand the devolatilisation process and to obtain its global kinetic parameters. The influences of particle size, initial weight of the sample and heating rate on the devolatilisation of sawdust particles have been studied. Results from proximate analysis show that smaller particle size has more ash content compared to larger particle size. The TG and derivative TG curve for variation in particle size and initial weight of the sample showed significant difference in the third stage of the pyrolysis. In addition, the pyrolysis of sawdust differed significantly for variation in heating rate. As the heating rates increased, the char yield also increased. The devolatilisation kinetics was studied considering different stages of pyrolysis. The kinetic parameters for thermal devolatilisation of the sawdust were determined through a nonlinear optimisation method of two independent parallel nth‐order reaction models. The kinetic parameters such as activation energy, frequency factor and order of the reaction for the two stages considered in the model were: E₂ = 79.53 (kJ/mol), E₃ = 60.71 (kJ/mol); k₀₂ = 1.90 × 10⁶ (1/min), k₀₃ = 1.01 × 10³ (1/min); n₂ = 0.91, n₃ = 1.78, respectively. The results show good agreement between the proposed model and the experimental data of the sawdust pyrolysis.