Thermal decomposition kinetics of rice husk: activation energy with dynamic thermogravimetric analysis

The trend for energy and material recovery from wastes along with the need to reduce greenhouse gases has led to an increased interest in the study of thermal degradation of biomass. In this study, the thermal degradation of four rice husk (agricultural biomass) of varieties (Pusa, Parmal, HBC-19 and Basmati) was studied under non-isothermal heating in dynamic air atmosphere by using a simultaneous thermal analyser. Thermal degradation of rice husk had two different stages: 'cellulose and hemicellulose conversion' and 'lignin conversion.' Friedman, Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (O-F-W) and Kissinger methods were used to determine kinetic parameters. The results showed that the activation energy obtained from the Friedman method was in good agreement with the value obtained using O-F-W method. The values of activation energies calculated by using Kissinger method were much lower than those calculated by Friedman and O-F-W method. The results obtained in this study were compared with those of the literature.