Wood Dust Flammability Analysis by Microscale Combustion Calorimetry

Abstract

To study the practicability of a micro combustion calorimeter to analyze the calorimetry kinetics of wood, a micro combustion calorimeter with 13 heating rates from 0.1 to 5.5 K/s was used to perform the analysis of 10 kinds of common hardwood and softwood samples. As a microscale combustion measurement method, MCC (microscale combustion calorimetry) can be used to judge the flammability of materials. However, there are two methods for measuring MCC: Method A and Method B. However, there is no uniform standard for the application of combustible MCC methods. In this study, the two MCC standard measurement Methods A and B were employed to check their practicability. With Method A, the maximum specific heat release rate, heat release temperature, and specific heat release of the samples were obtained at different heating rates, while for Method B, the maximum specific combustion rate, combustion temperature and net calorific values of the samples were obtained at different heating rates. The ignition capacity and heat release capacity were then derived and evaluated for all the common hardwood and softwood samples. The results obtained by the two methods have significant differences in the shape of the specific heat release rate curves and the amplitude of the characteristic parameters, which lead to the differences of the derived parameters. A comparison of the specific heat release and the net calorific heat of combustion with the gross caloric values and heating values obtained by bomb calorimetry was also made. The results show that Method B has the potentiality to evaluate the amount of combustion heat release of materials.