Elucidating the pyrolysis reaction mechanism of Calotropis procera and analysis of pyrolysis products to evaluate its potential for bioenergy and chemicals

•Calotropis procera is an abundantly available and uncharacterized bioresource.•Its biomass was pyrolyzed to evaluate its bioenergy potential.•Pyrolytic products were analyzed using TG-FTIR-MS.•Kinetics, thermodynamics, and pyrolysis reaction mechanism was interpreted.•It showed a considerable potential to produce energy and green chemicals. The present study was focused on evaluating the bioenergy potential of waste biomass of desert plant Calotropis procera. The biomass was pyrolyzed at four heating rates including 10 °Cmin−1, 20 °Cmin−1, 40 °Cmin−1, and 80 °Cmin−1. The pyrolysis reaction kinetics and thermodynamics parameters were assessed using isoconversional models namely Kissenger-Akahira-Sunose, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa, and Starink. Major pyrolysis reaction occurred between 200 and 450 °C at the conversion points (α) ranging from 0.2 to 0.6 while their corresponding reaction parameters including activation energy, enthalpy change, Gibb’s free energy and pre-exponential factors were ranged from 165 to 207 kJ mol−1, 169–200 kJ mol−1, 90–42 kJ mol−1, and 1018–1026 s−1, respectively. The narrow range of pre-exponential factors indicated a uniform pyrolysis, while lower differences between enthalpy change and activation energies indicated that reactions were thermodynamically favorable. The evolved gases were dominated by propanoic acid, 3-hydroxy-, hydrazide, hydrazinecarboxamide and carbohydrazide followed by amines/amides, alcohols, acids, aldehydes/ketones, and esters.