Kinetic Study of Cotton Stalk and Rice Husk Samples under an Inert and Oxy Combustion Atmospheres

Abstract

Biomass materials such as CS (Cotton Stalks) and RH (Rice Husk) are a renewable source of energy. As biomass resources have potential to offer a uninterpted supply of biofuels through thermal decomposition processes. Nevertheless, an appropriate understanding of reaction kinetics and thermal properties of biomasses play a vital role in designing of the commercial plants using biomass as a raw material for energy generation. The kinetic characteristics of the CS and RH samples under pure nitrogen 99.9% and pure oxygen 99.9% was performed. The temperature was raised from ambient to 900oC maintaining the heating rate of 10oC/min. CS and RH decomposition was noticed in three dissimilar regions. The kinetic characteristics such as (pre-exponential factor, the order of reaction and activation energy) were calculated for both selected materials. The activation energies calculated under nitrogen environment for CS and RH was 68.77 and 72.31 kJ/mole, whereas the regression coefficient (R²) was 0.9877 and 0.9731 respectively. The activation energies under oxygen environment were higher, it was 106 and 118 kJ/mole. The regression coefficient (R²) under oxygen environment was 0.9987 and 0.99883 for above sample sequence.