Smouldering of pine wood: Kinetics and reaction heats

A kinetic model of smouldering of pine wood is determined by thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), describing the reactions of wood pyrolysis, wood oxidation and char oxidation. Thermo-gravimetric experiments were conducted with constant heating rates ranging from 2.5 to 10 K/min in atmospheres of pure nitrogen and mixtures of nitrogen and oxygen (with 20.5%, 8.2% and 4.3% O2). At first wood pyrolysis and char oxidation experiments are carried out in an independent way. Then smouldering experiments are conducted, which combine the two previous reactions with wood oxidation. Finally, the heats of the reactions are determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results are discussed, compared with the literature and the derived kinetic model is presented, which includes five components: three pseudo-components of wood – representing roughly cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin – as well as char and ashes.