Prediction of biochar yield from cattle manure pyrolysis via least squares support vector machine intelligent approach

•Intelligent approach is applied for predicting cattle manure biochar yield.•Two intelligent models, ANN model and LS-SVM model, are developed.•LS-SVM model has a better predicting accuracy and robustness than ANN model. To predict conveniently the biochar yield from cattle manure pyrolysis, intelligent modeling approach was introduced in this research. A traditional artificial neural networks (ANN) model and a novel least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) model were developed. For the identification and prediction evaluation of the models, a data set with 33 experimental data was used, which were obtained using a laboratory-scale fixed bed reaction system. The results demonstrated that the intelligent modeling approach is greatly convenient and effective for the prediction of the biochar yield. In particular, the novel LS-SVM model has a more satisfying predicting performance and its robustness is better than the traditional ANN model. The introduction and application of the LS-SVM modeling method gives a successful example, which is a good reference for the modeling study of cattle manure pyrolysis process, even other similar processes.