Pyrolysis characteristics and global kinetics of coconut and cashew nut shells

Coconut and cashew nut shells are two typical biomass wastes abundant in most of the tropical countries. However, despite their enormous potential as energy sources, they are hardly studied and their thermal characteristics are still not well known. In this study, both biomasses are thermally degraded through thermogravimetry and their characteristics such as devolatilisation profiles and kinetics are analyzed, from 250 to 900 degrees C, in an inert atmosphere, at two different heating rates, and compared with wood pellets. The results show that their pyrolysis profiles are different from that of the commonly studied woody biomass. In fact, they present two different peaks instead of the one overlapping peak, for hemicellulose and cellulose. In addition, they present activation energies ranging from that are slightly above the commonly known maximum for biomass. At 10 and 20 degrees C/min the activation energy varied from about 130 to 174 and 180 to 216 kJ/mol, for cashew and coconut shells, respectively. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.