Investigation on catalyzed combustion of wheat straw by thermal analysis

Combustion of wheat straw incorporating TiO₂, CuO and MnO₂ was investigated by means of thermal analysis carried out at 20 °C/min in the temperature range from 50 °C to 900 °C. Combustion characteristic indexes had been put forward to describe wheat straw combustion characteristics. All the results showed that the catalysis of the catalysts to the wheat straw combustion had been embodied in facilitation of the volatile matters release from wheat straw, which reduced the temperature of the maximum combustion rate, and the relative active sequence of catalysts to the ignition characteristic could be improved remarkably. The catalysis of different catalysts to the Devolatilization Index could be described as follows: MnO₂ > TiO₂ > CuO, and the relative active sequence of catalysts to the Combustion Characteristic Index could be described as follows: CuO > TiO₂ > MnO₂.