Thermogravimetric analysis was used to investigate oxy combustion of corncob and stover. The biomass samples were heated from ambient temperature to 900°C at different heating rates of 10, 30, and 50 K/min. Both biomass samples showed similar weight loss patterns with three zones, corresponding to dehydration, devolatilization, and char combustion, but displayed different degradation temperatures. Increasing heating rate was found to shift the degradation patterns to higher temperatures. Decomposition rates of cob and stover may have been influenced by their lignocellulosic composition. The kinetic parameters of the thermal degradation process were also determined and compared using the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa and Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose methods. Both methods were found to give similar values and patterns of activation energy against conversion fraction. The average values were found to be in similar magnitude to those reported in the literature, around 170 and 148 kJ/mol for cob and stover, respectively.

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This work studied generation of producer gas using oxygen-enriched air and steam mixture as gasifying medium. Corn residues consisting of cobs and stover were used as biomass feedstock. Both corn residues were pelletized and gasified separately with normal air, oxygen enriched air and steam mixture in a fixed bed reactor. Effects of oxygen concentration in enriched air (21-50%), equivalence ratio (0.15-0.35), and steam to biomass ratio (0-0.8) on the yield of product gas, the combustible gas composition such as H2, CO, and CH4, the lower heating value (LHV), and the gasification efficiency were investigated. It was found that the decrease in nitrogen dilution in oxygen enriched air increased proportion of combustible gas components, improved the LHV of producer gas, but gasification efficiency was not affected. The increase in equivalence ratio favoured high product gas yield but decreased combustible gas components and LHV. It was also observed that introduction of steam enhanced H2 production but excessive steam degraded fuel gas quality and decreased gasification efficiency. The highest gasification efficiency of each oxygen concentration was at equivalence ratio of 0.3 and steam to biomass ratio of 0.58 for cob, and 0.22 and 0.68 for stover, respectively. ©2019. CBIORE-IJRED. All rights reserved