Development of a detailed kinetic model for the combustion of biomass

Abstract In the context of the growing utilization of biomass to produce energy and of the related need to decrease pollutant emissions from domestic wood combustion devices, this paper presents a new kinetic model of wood combustion considering especially in details the gas-phase reactions related to the combustion of the tars produced by the biomass devolatization. The tar production is predicted using a semi-detailed mechanism of the literature. The tar gas-phase combustion model has been built as a compilation of literature mechanisms already proposed for these species, except for hydroxyacetaldehyde for which a new oxidation mechanism has been written. Experiments on the thermochemical behavior of three types of wood (beech, fir and oak) were also performed in parallel of this work using Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The new detailed kinetic model of wood combustion, BioPOx (Biomass Pyrolysis and Oxidation), has been tested against a wide range of experimental results published in literature. This model fairly reproduces experimental results for pyrolysis and combustion of biomass and its constituents, key produced tars from biomass pyrolysis, and key compounds for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) formation, for a wide range of experimental devices and operating conditions.