Thermal influx induced biopolymeric transitions in paddy straw

This is the first article highlighting the bio-polymeric transitions in individual intrinsic bio-constituents during pyrolytic thermal degradation of paddy straw through deconvolution of first order derivative of conversion profile. Non-isothermal slow pyrolysis of raw paddy straw was executed in a thermogravimetric analyzer at different heating rates (beta = 10, 20 30 and 40 C/min). Gaussian deconvolution technique was used to find individual signals related to each intrinsic biopolymers (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) in biomaterial. Different heating rates provided varied levels of heat influx to same biomaterial under same the environment which induced the different biopolymeric transitions in biomaterial. The multi-step mechanism was adopted to determine the kinetic triplets of paddy straw by using three different iso-conversional methods; OFW, KAS, and STM. The calculated activation energy from all three methods shows very negligible variations. From reaction mechanisms of three biopolymeric constituents, we established that thermal degradation of raw paddy straw underwent various complex reactions. This particular work found that all bioconsituents commonly followed the trends of diffusion model with no restriction of order of reaction.

Automated summary

This study highlights the bio-polymeric transitions in individual intrinsic bio-constituents during the pyrolytic thermal degradation of paddy straw. Different heating rates induced different transitions in biomaterial, and the kinetic triplets of paddy straw were determined using three different iso-conversional methods. The thermal degradation of paddy straw was found to involve complex reactions of the biopolymeric constituents.