Modeling of gas production during pyrolysis of biomass with triple gaussian function

To address the limitations of the inability to monitor the internal processing environment of pyrolysis, a triple Gaussian model was developed to effectively describe gas production during biomass pyrolysis at different dwelling temperatures and ramping rates. A CO2 and H2 gas sensor array was constructed to collect gas pro-duction data during the biomass pyrolysis which was fitted to the three gas production ranges of the triple Gaussian model, carbonization, gasification, and activation. The amplitude A (peak gas production), mean mu (time at gas production peak), and standard deviation sigma (rate of gas production) components of the triple Gaussian function were studied for the three ranges. The results showed that as both ramping rate and dwelling temperature increased, the production of CO2 increased, while the H2 production decreased. The analysis of A, sigma, and mu Gaussian components of the model showed that in the carbonization range, the peak CO2 increased and H2 production decreased. In the gasification range, the CO2 production decreased, while more H2 production happened as the ramping rate and dwelling temperature increased. The components of both H2 and CO2 models were compared. These relationships between Gaussian components and ramping rate and dwelling temperature, showed clear linear trends. The results showed that the carbonization and gasification ranges of the two models were inversed. ESEM was performed on the resulting carbons which showed that more degradation in the carbon structure occurred at higher temperatures and lower ramping rate.