Non-isothermal Thermogravimetric Analysis of Peltophorum pterocarpum and Evaluation of Kinetic Triplet

Abstract

The primary focus of the twenty-first century has been on developing new and cleaner fuels from renewable sources. The increasing availability of renewable energy sources in environment, such as lignocellulosic biomass derived from agricultural and forest residues, has created a plethora of opportunities for biofuel production. For this purpose, the search for appropriate waste biomass source and the design of suitable reactors are very essential, where the latter requires the knowledge of kinetic triplets. These requirements paved the way to the novelty of the present work as a selection of a rarely used biomass source, that is, Peltophorum pterocarpum, and its non-isothermal thermogravimetric analysis for the evaluation of kinetic triplet of the process. The range of temperature is 298–1173 K attained at heating rates of 10–55 K min⁻¹. Kinetics were estimated using differential Friedman method (DFM), distributed activation energy method (DAEM), Ozawa–Flynn–Wall (OFW), Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS), and Starink (STK) models. Mean activation energy (kJ mol⁻¹) and pre-exponential factor (min⁻¹) of pyrolysis process by five models were 183.68 and 1.24 × 10¹⁷ for DAEM, 194.28 and 3.08 × 10²¹ for DFM, 183.68 and 4.40 × 10¹⁶ for KAS, 184.12 and 2.12 × 10¹⁴ for OFW, and 183.93 and 3.56 × 10¹⁶ for STK. Average values of changes in Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, and entropy by five models are 174 kJ mol⁻¹, 178 kJ mol⁻¹, and 0.007 kJ mol⁻¹ K⁻¹, respectively. Criado's master plots revealed distinct reaction pathways during the process for different conversion levels.