Kinetic study of forest fuels by TGA: Model-free kinetic approach for the prediction of phenomena

The kinetics of thermal decomposition of a forest fuel was studied by thermogravimetry. Experiments were monitored under air and non-isothermal conditions from 400 to 900 K. We used a classical model-free method, the Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS) method to calculate the activation energy vs. the conversion degree of the reaction on the whole temperature domain. Analyses were performed at 10, 20 and 30 K/min. As expected, the complex structure of lignocellulosic fuels involved several steps with different energies in the degradation processes. The algorithm developed here, allows the calculation and the simulation of the solid temperature at different conversion degree for various heating rates. The good correlation between experiments and simulations validated the proposed algorithm. Then, kinetics parameters were used to perform simulations up to heating rates outside the functioning range of the thermal analyser.