Pyrolysis of Sawdust, Rice Husk and Sugarcane Bagasse: Kinetic Modeling and Estimation of Kinetic Parameters using Different Optimization Tools

The present study provides the kinetic model to describe the pyrolysis of sawdust, rice-husk and sugarcane bagasse as biomass. The kinetic scheme used for modelling of primary pyrolysis consisting of the two parallel reactions giving gaseous volatiles and solid char. Estimation of kinetic parameters for pyrolysis process has been carried out for temperature range of 773–1,173 K. As there are serious issues regarding non-convergence of some of the methods or solutions converging to local-optima, the proposed kinetic model is optimized to predict the best values of kinetic parameters for the system using three approaches—Two-dimensional surface fitting non-linear regression technique, MS-Excel Solver Tool and COMSOL software. The model predictions are in agreement with experimental data over a wide range of pyrolysis conditions. The estimated value of kinetic parameters are compared with earlier researchers and found to be matching well. © 2015, The Institution of Engineers (India).