kinetic study of the biomass devolatilization process in particles sizes between 2-19 mm by means of thermogravimetric analysis

A chemical kinetic study of the biomass devolatilization process is presented looking for to improve the design of the biomass gasification-combustion systems and their kinetics (dimensional) models. the study is carried out by means of thermo-gravimetric tests, with biomass size between 2 -19 mm, and with the heating rate of 10, 15 and 20 K/min. This work is developed because there are not available results on the literature with biomass size bigger than 1 mm. The experimental points are fitted by means of a first order model, to calculate the parameters of the kinetic constants (Arrhenius form). The activation energy is proportional to the heating rate and the biomass size. It can be seen that the thermal decomposition of the biomass is gotten at higher temperatures; due to the transports phenomena (heat and mass) are more relevant. The kinetic parameters calculated can be used in the biomass gasification- combustion dimensional models, in function of the biomass size, to improve the simulation results