The accuracy and efficiency of GA and PSO optimization schemes on estimating reaction kinetic parameters of biomass pyrolysis

Reaction kinetic parameters estimation of biomass pyrolysis is a relatively difficult optimization problem due to the complexity of pyrolysis model. Two common heuristic algorithms, Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), are applied to estimate the kinetic parameters of three-component parallel reaction mechanism based on the thermogravimetric experiment in wide heating rates. The accuracy and efficiency of GA and PSO algorithms are compared with each other under the identical optimization conditions. The results indicate the better optimization abilities of PSO with the closer convergence solution to the global optimum and quicker convergence to the solution than GA based on the three-component parallel reaction mechanism of biomass pyrolysis. Especially, the improvement of best fitting value of PSO reaches up to 30% compared with that of GA. Furthermore, 14 estimated kinetic parameters of best fitting value are obtained and the mass loss rate predicted results including three separate components (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) are compared with experimental data. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.