Physico–chemical characterization and pyrolysis kinetics of Eichhornia Crassipes, Thevetia Peruviana, and Saccharum Officinarum

[Display omitted] •Physicochemical characterization and kinetic analysis of three potential biomass.•Kinetic analysis with four isoconversional models including Vyazovkin (AIC) method.•Wide variation of activation energies with thermal conversion due to complex chemistry.•High pre-exponential factors indicate high reactivity and simple complex of reactions.•Prevalence of dual reaction mechanism at different levels of conversion for all biomass. This paper reports physico–chemical characterization and kinetic analyses of three biomass, viz. invasive species of water hyacinth (WH), yellow oleander (TP), and industrial byproduct of sugar cane bagasse (SCB) to assess their potential as feedstock for pyrolysis. Extensive physico-chemical characterization of biomass with standard techniques was carried out. Four isoconversional methods, viz. Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS), Friedman, Ozawa–Flynn–Wall (OFW), and advanced Vyazovkin_AIC were used to determine the kinetics triplets of thermal conversion at three heating rates 10, 30 and 40 °C min−1. A high crystallinity index was detected in SCB (42.25%), followed by WH (38.43%), and TP (32.46%). The higher heating values of the feedstock were in the range of 15–21 MJ kg−1. The activation energies for WH, TP and SCB determined using the four isoconversional methods were in the range of 187.74–329.71, 182.28– 389.24, and 193.45–293.49 kJ mol−1, respectively. All biomass showed dual reaction mechanism of thermal conversion. For WH and TP the prevalent mechanisms were three–dimensional diffusion (D3) for α ≤ 0.6 and 3rd–order reaction (F3) for α ≥ 0.6. SCB exhibited mechanism of three–dimensional diffusion (D3) for α ≤ 0.6, and 2nd/3rd ordered reaction (F2/F3) for α ≥ 0.6. The characterization and kinetic analysis of all biomass essentially demonstrates their potential as feedstock for pyrolysis.