Applications of distributed activation energy model on the pyrolysis of green renewable wood

Recycling and reusing biomass is an effective strategy to enhancing bioenergy utilization and minimizing resource waste. This study aims to investigate the pyrolysis mechanisms and kinetic predictions of typical Cy-press Wood (CW), Fir Wood (FW), Old Cypress Wood (OCW), and Old Fir Wood (OFW) samples, Distributed Activation Energy Models (DAEMs) were employed to fit the pyrolysis processes of the two types of wood before and after natural aging. For this purpose, three activation energy distributions, Gaussian, Logistic, and Weibull, were selected to investigate the optimal reaction function model. Each model was simultaneously fitted the extracted experimental alpha and d alpha/dT data at three heating rates. Important features and relationships of the models were discussed, and the best model was chosen. Additionally, the isoconversional method was used to validate the optimal model, and the sensitivity of the best parameters were estimated. The result shows that the Weibull distribution is more effective in predicting the trend of the conversion rate against the activation energy. In addition, the most obvious effects of the pre-exponential factor and activation energy on the pyrolysis process.