KINETICS OF BIOCHAR FORMATION FROM AGRICULTURAL WASTE

Abstract

The present thesis deals with the investigation of the kinetics of combustion of three agricultural waste for the dual sake of safely eliminating a waste and energy production. The three wastes investigated were orange peels, banana peels and bagasse, the fibrous residue from the sugar cane industry. In all cases, thermal analysis in air was carried out at four different heating rates and five different kinetic models applied in order to determine the steps of degradation, the conditions of formation of biochar, the activation energy of the various steps of degradation and the possible controlling step. The thermal analysis curves obtained displayed the variation of mass with temperature (TG) and rate of change with respect to time (DTG).