Kinetic Modeling of Indian Rice Husk Pyrolysis

To efficiently utilize agricultural biomass waste, kinetic modeling of the pyrolysis of rice husk, including both physical (mainly heat transfer) and chemical (reactions) terms, was conducted at different heating rates from (10 to 20 K min−1) to develop a transport model. For chemical kinetics, the parameters were estimated using different kinetic models, namely the single- or parallel-reaction kinetic model with higher orders and the two-step consecutive reaction model. The two-step model could adequately explain the pyrolysis reaction of multiple reactions with different reaction orders i. e., first step is of the first order (m = 1) with respect to the mass of biomass, and the second step is of the second order (n = 2) with respect to the mass of the intermediate to char. The intrinsic kinetics at different heating rates in the absence of oxygen was derived through thermogravimetric analysis. The kinetics of the evolution of non-condensable gases was studied in a self-designed reactor, and an appropriate kinetic model of rice husk biomass pyrolysis that showed excellent agreement with experimental data was established.