Optimization of Kinetic Parameters in Pyrolysis of Biomass Using Differential Evolution (DE)

Pyrolysis, a first step in the biomass gasification, is the thermal decomposition of organic matter under inert atmospheric conditions, leading to the release of volatiles and formation of char. In the proposed kinetic model of this study, the kinetic scheme of biomass decomposition by two competing reactions giving gaseous volatiles and solid charcoal is used. Four different models are proposed based on different possible relation of activity of biomass with normalized conversion. The corresponding kinetic parameters of the above models are estimated by minimizing the square of the error between the reported experimental data of thermogravimetry of hazelnut shell and simulated model predicted values of residual weight fraction using Differential Evolution (DE), a population based search algorithm. Among the four different models proposed in this study, Model-3 gave the best agreement with the experimental data.