Comments on “Pyrolysis kinetics of biomass from product information” (Applied Energy 110 (2013) 1-8) regarding the inability to obtain meaningful kinetic parameters from a single non-isothermal curve

In this letter, some widespread misuses pertaining to kinetic analysis carried out using experimental data from a single non-isothermal curve are clarified in response to a manuscript recently published in this journal (Huang et al., 2003). It is shown that kinetic parameters cannot be unambiguously determined from data extracted from a single non-isothermal curve because different kinetic triplets can describe the very same curve. Thus, a set of curves recorded under different heating schedules are to be employed in order to obtain reliable kinetic parameters. Also, it is proven that assuming first order kinetic models constitutes an oversimplification that can easily lead to erroneous kinetic parameters.