Pyrolytic conversion of a novel biomass Ficus natalensis barkcloth: physiochemical and thermo-kinetic analysis

Abstract

The over reliance on fossil fuels for power generation has resulted in an alarming depletion of petrochemical crude oil reserves, that also is the cause of elevated greenhouse gas effects. Biomass resources are considered potential fuels for the future on account of their renewable and carbon-neutral features. This study presents the physicochemical characteristics and pyrolysis behavior of a novel biomass Ficus natalensis barkcloth (FNB). Physicochemical characterization indicated that the FNB has 74.4% volatile matter contents, a higher heating value (HHV) of 13.8 MJ/kg, and it has 67% cellulose as its main chemical constituent. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that major decomposition occurred at the core devolatization (235℃ to 410 ℃) under inert thermal degradation. Model-free and model-fitting kinetic methods were applied to TGA data to compute the kinetics triplet for FNB biomass. The average activation energy (E a ) of the FNB pyrolysis process was determined to be 168 kJ/mol. The compensation effects between pre-exponential factor (A) and E a detected a rise in collision intensity for the pyrolysis of FNB at high heating rates. The Criado master plot results showed that the pyrolysis of FNB followed first-order reaction (F 1 ) mechanism. The thermodynamic parameters, such as change in enthalpy (ΔH), Gibbs free energy (ΔG), and entropy (ΔS), were also calculated and compared with kinetics parameters to evaluate the evolution of thermal degradation. Physiochemical and thermo-kinetic analysis of FBN revealed its comparable bioenergy potential with established biomasses.

Multiple-criteria decision analysis to substantiate the prospects of industrial and solid municipal wastes as slurry fuel components

“…In particular, the calorific value was determined using an IKA C 2000 calorimeter, and elemental analysis was carried out in a vario MICRO cube Elementar ( Vershinina et al, 2022 ). The principles and methods of analysis corresponded to the standard approaches for solid fuels ( Ashraf et al, 2021 ; Farooq et al., 2021 ).…”