These tests were taken in two parts: In the first test, 11 plants per crop type in each region (11 plants x 2 crop types x 2 regions) were evaluated to determine the leaf’s morphological characteristics, the amount of leaves, and their weight in relation to the total weight of the plant (expressed in percentage). In the second test, fiber production was carried out ten times with intervals of 15 min, with the purpose of finding the costs and the level of production of the prototype machine.

7.2.3 Morphological Parameters of the Leaf and Bleaching

All plants (11 in each site) were randomly selected in the plantation. The plants were manually extracted and the roots were eliminated. Posteriorly, the leaves of the base of the plants (small stalk) were separated and each part was weighed. Each leaf was measured lengthwise and then all leaves were put together to determine their weight. Following that, fiber was extracted using the prototype machine and three fiber bleaching treatments (Table 7.1) were applied. Next, the fiber was dried using the drying system developed by Moya and Solano (2012).

Resin transfer moulding is a profitable technique for natural fibre composites. In this technique, resin and hardener are pumped separately to the mixing head before injection into the mould. The required amount of resins injected into the prear­ranged fabrics. Pressure can be applied from the opposite direction of injected mould. The wastage of resin is very less and good shape of product is found by this method. Indira et al. (2013) studied the effect of fibre length and fibre loading on the properties of banana fibre-reinforced phenol formaldehyde resin (PFR) composites. They found greater tensile and flexural properties in resin transfer moulded compos­ites than in compression moulded composites. However, it needs big investment for large-scale production.

10.3.2.3 Bulk Moulding

A male-female combination of a closed mould is needed for bulk moulding. Short fibres are specially used in this process. Nowadays, thermoset bulk moulded product occupied the market of thermoplastic injection moulded compounds such as motor parts, electrical component and housing appliances. (Samivel and Babu 2013). The surface smoothness of finish product is good but contains some void portion which reduces composite strength.

Another widely used configuration is the flat-plate PBR, which is constructed by employing slender rectangular containers composed of transparent material. These cylinders are tilted at certain angle, which allows maximum coverage of sunlight. Photoautotrophic cells cultivated in this PBR have high densities (>80 g/L). These are more appropriate for cultivation since they allow low accumulation of dissolved oxygen and allow photosynthesis to occur proficiently. Still, problems like tempera­ture control and adherence of algae to reactor walls exist.

13.3.2.2 Column Photobioreactors

This configuration of a photobioreactor offers the finest mixing, most manageable cultivation conditions and greatest volumetric mass relocation rates. They are eco­nomic and the setup is comparatively easy. Column PBR are aerated from the base and their translucent walls allow maximum exposure to light. They can also be illumi­nated internally.

13.3.2.3 Continuously Stirred Tank Reactors

The tank is in the shape of a broad, hollow, and capped cylindrical duct that has the potential to operate both outdoor and indoor. Risk of culture infection is extremely low. Stirring and illuminating apparatuses are inserted from above. Drainage systems and gas injectors are placed at the bottom and in the mid-section. The consistent turbulent flow induces algal growth and averts fouling of the culture.

When judged against the open pond systems, in a PBR the algal culture is efficiently protected from any sort of pollutant and loss due to low evaporation. The cultivation parameters (level of nutrients, temperature, pH level, etc.) can also be effectively managed.

The sugarcane straw availability depends on the sugarcane variety and age of har­vesting. The sugarcane straw can be harvested from 10 to 18 tons per hectare on the dry basis ration of straw and stalk (11-17 %). The acceptable ratio of straw to stalk range is 14-18 %, and straw availability depends on sugarcane yield (Leal et al. 2013). The sugarcane straw consists of cellulose (33.3-36.1 %), hemicellulose (18.4-28.9 %), lignin (25.8-40.7 %), extractives (5.3-1.5 %), and ashes (2.1-11.7 %). Leal et al.

(2013) reported that sugarcane straw would be harvested as 62 % dry leaves, 31 % green leaves, and 7 % tops. Top of sugarcane containing higher chlorine may cause corrosion in the fire boilers. The proximate and ultimate analysis of dry matter and mineral of sugarcane straw has been shown in Tables 16.1,16.2, and 16.3.

Extensive requirement of fresh water is the basic challenge to produce algal bio­mass. For instance, approximately 1.5 L of water per kilogram of biofuel produced. In CPBs, water use may be much larger due to losses either in the form of evapora­tion in open cultivation systems or for water usage for cooling (Wijffels and Barbosa 2010). In open systems, the annual water consumption in RPs for microalgae bio­mass production is in the range of 11-13 million L ha-1 (Chinnasamy et al. 2010). This highpoints the significance of reusing waste water (sourced from industrial, municipal effluents) that enables nutrient recycling, subsequently lowering the cost of production (Santiago et al. 2013).

18.3.1 Microalgae Based Bioremediation

Microalgae based bioremediation have been widely studied to remove pollutants (bio-extraction) from water in the last four decades (Ryther et al. 1972; Kuyucak and Volesky 1988; Romero-Gonzalez et al. 2001; Fu and Wang 2011). Several studies have been conducted to present this proof-of-concept in this scenario (Table 18.3). Three microalgal species were cultivated in heavy metal contami­nated water, either nutrient addition or without nutrients. All species accumulated heavy metals concentration as high as up to 8 % of their dry mass. Interestingly, growth rates were also increased by two folds, when cultured in contaminated water as compared to fresh water (Saunders et al. 2012). In another study, two algal species, including Scenedesmus sp. and Chlorella sp. were cultivated favor­ably on anaerobic sludge centrate representing the higher nutrient uptake (phos­phorous and ammonia) and average growth rate obtained was 3.3 ± 1.5 g dry biomass m-2 day-1 in this case (Dalrymple et al. 2013). Algae grown on anaerobic sludge centrate showed growth productivity rate of 12.8 g dry biomass m-2 day-1 (Zhou et al. 2012b) . Similarly, growth rate of 3 g dry biomass m-2 day-1 for Chlorella sp. grown on wastewater was reported by Woertz et al. (2009). In addi­tion, an unusually higher growth rate (13 g of dry biomass m-2 day-1) was reported in a batch culture study. It was shown that at the end of 14-day batch culture 94 % ammonia, 89 % total nitrogen, and 81 % total phosphorous were removed by algal species from municipal waste water (Li et al. 2011a).

Although Chlorella sp. can produce lipid contents up to 30 % yet lipids contents decrease by two folds when grown in high strength nitrogen media (usually waste water contains high nitrogen). It is believed that lipid production is considerably reduced under such situations because of low C:N ratio. In gen­eral, high lipid contents are achieved when the microalgae are “starved” of nitrogen (Illman et al. 2000; Chisti 2007). So, nitrogen is the key nutrient to be considered while we are interested to enhance the lipid productivity of our test microalgae.

Bamboo fibers reinforced composites with poly lactic acid and poly butylene suc­cinate are easily degraded by enzymes like proteinase K and lipase PS. Degradation rate of these composites is reduced by the addition of lysine based diisocyanate (LDI), which also enhances their tensile properties, water resistance, and inter facial adhesion (Lee and Wang 2006). Bamboo fibers obtained from compression molding technique and roller mill technique are reinforced into unidirectional composites of polyester. These composites are highly degradable by the use of enzymes (Deshpande et al. 2000). Water bamboo husk and poly butylene succinate novel reinforced com­posites are biodegradable in nature (Shih et al. 2006). Bamboo fiber filled poly lactic acid composites are ecocomposites as they are biodegradable and save the environment from pollution (Lee et al. 2005). Micro-sized bamboo fibers and modi­fied soy protein resin are used to fabricate environmentally friendly composites.

These composites have increased fracture stress and young’s modulus. These composites are fully biodegradable and have a great potential to replace traditional and expensive petroleum based materials in many applications (Huang and Netravali

2009) . Bamboo fiber reinforced in poly butylene succinate matrix produces long fiber unidirectional composites. These composites have high values for tensile and mechanical properties. The mechanical properties are enhanced as the amount of bamboo fiber is increased. Young’s modulus of these composites is predicted by laminate theory but experimental results show that ratio obtained by laminate theory is lower than the actual (Ogihara et al. 2008).

The properties of biomass has been studied for decades; however the data were different among cited works because different types of biomass were used, different moisture conditions were present and different methods were employed. Researchers concluded that the overall properties of agricultural biomass are determined by large variables including its structure, chemical composition, cell dimension and microfibril angle. Furthermore these properties are also varying considerably between plant species and even in the same individual plant (John and Anandjiwala 2008).

5.3.1 Chemical Properties

Plant biomass is primarily composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin along with smaller amounts of pectin, protein and ash (Kumar et al. 2009). Cellulose is a semicrystalline polysaccharide made up of D-anhydroglucose (C6H11O5) units linked together by p-(1-4)-glycosidic bonds. It provides strength, stiffness and structural stability of the fibre which help to maintain the structure of plants and serves as a deciding factor for mechanical properties. Hemicelluloses are branched and fully amorphous polymers. Meanwhile, lignin is a complex hydrocarbon polymer with both aliphatic and aromatic constituents. Lignin is associated with the hemicellu — loses in plant cell wall and plays an important role in the natural decay resistance of the biomass material (Majhi et al. 2010). Table 5.1 shows the variability in cell wall composition in biomass. The table shows that content of the polymers are highly variable depending on the plant species. The composition, structure and properties of biomass depend on plant age, soil condition and other environmental factor including stress, humidity and temperature (Jawaid and Abdul Khalil 2011). The polymer chemistry of these fibres will affect their characteristics, functionalities and properties processing in different applications (Gorshkova et al. 2012).

Many experiments were conducted based on the literature review. Finally, the leaves are treated in NaOH solution at the concentration of 0.25 M, and the soaking time is 12 h. Now onwards, the chemically treated fibers are called as IDL CT.

8.2.2 Fiber Characterization

The extracted and chemically treated IDL fiber is examined under JEOL JSM — 5350A SEM to understand the morphology of the fiber. Single fiber tensile test (SFTT) is also conducted on specimens as per ASTM C 1557-03Є1. An SFTT speci­men is carefully fixed in a wing-type fixture, and the tensile test is conducted on PC

2000 Electronic Tensometer which has a load cell of 20 kg. The density of the fiber is determined by the ASTM D 3800-99 Procedure A-Buoyancy (Archimedes) method and pycnometry procedure. Fiber density determined by both methods is nearly equal, but the Archimedes method is used in the present work.

Consumption

Tanvir Arfin, Faruq Mohammad, and NorAzah Yusof

Contents

12.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 192

12.2 Leading Economic Factor of Woody Biomass………………………………………………………….. 196

12.3 Bio-Energy in Combination with CCS Power Generation……………………………………………. 196

12.4 BECCS Under Climate Policy……………………………………………………………………………. 197

12.5 Costs Associated with the Delivery of Woody Biomass to Power Plants………………………….. 198

12.5.1 Costs Associated with Biomass Procurement 199

12.5.2 Costs Associated with Biomass Delivery 199

12.6 Methods for the Estimation of Woody Biomass……………………………………………………….. 200

12.6.1 Destructive Sampling-Based Biomass Estimation…………………………………………. 200

12.6.2 Microwave Remote Sensing or Radar-Based Remote Sensing………………………… 201

12.6.3 Vegetation Indices-Based Biomass Estimation……………………………………………. 203

12.7 Error Budget Investigation During Biomass Estimation……………………………………………… 203

12.8 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 204

References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 205

Abstract Energy is said to be potentially at the core of modern civilization right from industrial revolution, where technology has modified and redefined the way in any individual or a group that uses the energy, but the technological advancement in all spheres continues to be dependent on its use. The prevailing trend has triggered the need for alternative, renewable and sustainable energy sources which are now being considered extensively and pursued globally to turn aside the possibility of

T. Arfin (*)

Department of Chemistry, UkaTarsadia University,

Maliba Campus, Gopal Vidyanagar, Bardoli 394350, India e-mail: tanvirarfin@ymail. com

F. Mohammad (*) • N. Yusof

Institute of Advanced Technology, Universiti Putra, Serdang, Selangor 43400, Malaysia e-mail: faruq_m@upm. edu. my

K. R. Hakeem et al. (eds.), Biomass and Bioenergy: Processing and Properties,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-07641-6_12, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 climate change at the range of attaining a state of irreversibility. A versatile raw material, biomass, can be used for the generation of energy by means of heat production, transport fuels and many essential bio-products which directly or indi­rectly contributes for the current growing demands of energy. When produced and used on a sustainable basis, the biomass-based energy production acts as a carbon — neutral carrier and thus contributes for the reduction of large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, thereby finding its way for the prevention of global warming. In most developing countries, the quantitative information available on woody biomass resources, at scales related to the procurement area. Based on the growing demands of woody biomass for energy production in the current and near future, the present report is therefore aimed to provide an in-depth information about various agencies linked to biomass resources, leading economic factors of woody biomass, methods available for the estimation of costs associated with bioenergy, etc. Further, we also discussed about the methods to estimate biomass in forest ecosystems by means of destructive sample, microwave remote sensing-based assessment, woody vegetation indices and also provided the investigation methods during the estimation of error budgets.

Keywords BECCS • Allometry equation • Destructive sampling • Microwave remote sensing • Error budgets

12.1 Introduction

Biomass is mainly composed of organic matter derived from plant sources and the very exclusive process such as “photosynthesis” enables trees and plants to store the solar energy into the chemical bonds of their respective structural components. During the photosynthesis process, the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the blanket of air present in the atmosphere vigorously reacts with the universal solvent, water from the earth to pro­duce carbohydrates (mainly sugars in the form of glucose) and this constitutes the building block of biomass. The photosynthesis process in the presence of sunlight to form biomass has been expressed in the chemical equation given below.

6H2O + 6CO2 Snnll8ht > C6H12O6 + 6O2

The essential raw materials of photosynthesis, water and CO2 on entering the cells of dorsal side of leaf produces simple sugar and oxygen. Since the earth’s bio­mass exists in a thin layer called biosphere, where the life is supported and stores enormous energy constantly which is replenished by flowing energy from the sun as a result of photosynthesis.

Biomass has two main categories: “virgin biomass” which mainly comprises forestry and energy crops and “waste biomass” leading from the forest thinning, wood residues, recycling, sewage, municipal wastes, food and animal wastes as well as the domestic waste. Despite the advent of modern fossil energy technologies, the biomass still regarded as the vital source of energy for human beings and also for the advancement of raw materials used especially in the present era of the develop­ing world. According to a recent estimation, it has been noted that the biomass production is about eight times higher than the total annual world consumption of energy from all other sources available on earth. According to literature reports in 2003, the world’s population uses only a 7 % of the estimated annual production of biomass on the basis of new reading of the production rate (Koren and Bisesi 2003; Berndes et al. 2003).

It is to be noted that the principle of bioenergy production from biomass is the reversal of normal photosynthesis process by the plants, i. e. CO2 + 2H2O light, heat ® ([CH2O] + H2O) + O2. The direct combustion method is the simplest and most common method of capturing and generating the energy which is contained within the biomass. Combustion devices are commercially avail­able and are also a well-proven technology for converting biomass into energy. However, improvements are continuously being made repeatedly in various pro­cesses such as fuel preparation, combustion and flue gas cleaning technology, as a result of demand to utilize new or uncommon fuels, improved efficiencies, mini­mized costs and reduced emissions in the current scenario (Hoogwijk et al. 2003).

The energy generated from biomass combustion is used as the basic heat source for all the processes and the heat energy is used to vaporize the working fluid in the medium available. The vapour is stretched downward in the turbine to produce mechanical energy which is further converted into electricity through hydroelectric­ity and geothermal energy as an alternative source of energy. During the process, an electric boiler is utilized for the preliminary investigation of the whole system and the energy liberated by the combustion of biomass lies in the range of 8 MJ/Kg for wet greenwood to 55 MJ/kg for oven dried plant material; while a 55 MJ/kg is gen­erated from methane combustion and 23-30 MJ/kg for coal burning (Twidell 1998).

Basically, the biomass-based energy production is considered to be a carbon neu­tral process, i. e. the amount of carbon emissions released after combustion are wholly taken up by the plants during their catabolic activity of growth. This results in no net gaining of carbon dioxide by the atmosphere which proves the law of con­servation of energy. If the forest and agricultural residues or wastes are allowed to decompose naturally on their own, the same amount of carbon emissions as biomass — based energy will be released into the atmosphere. The use of biomass as a source of fuel has much wider implications in terms of social, economic, biophysical, bio­logical and environmental aspects. However, the excessive deforestation, i. e. cutting of the trees for fuel needs leads to a reduction in the biodiversity of plant species and also destructs habitat for wildlife, land degradation, soil erosion, etc. The loss of soil can be covered by the use of crop residues and overgrazing increases soil erosion and thus reduces the agricultural production and consumption. Also, the use of bio­mass fuels gives rise to high levels of indoor air pollution caused from various sources affects human health in a very indigenous way.

In recent years, due to the rapid development and existence of the “peak oil” theory into reality, the renewable carbon, i. e. the base of fuels for energy production has been playing a vital role in today’s world economy. Further, in order to depend completely on the carbon-based economy and also to provide energy fully to the current growing population, the research and development efforts are continued to transform the existing fuel-wood technology into a high-tech liquid biofuel tech­nology. Also, a continuous supply of funds have been provided for the research activities to meet the requirements of the international protocols and guidelines of various agencies such as Kyoto Protocol on the Climatic Changes, Reducing Emissions from Degradation and forest Degradation (REDD) and Cleaner Development Mechanisms at smaller village scales level (Gibbs et al. 2007; Woodhouse 2006a, b). The burning of biomass in the atmosphere, especially the fuel-wood, has served as a major source of energy production according to most of the recorded history. D. O. Hall indicates that biomass produces only a 14 % of all energy consumed on worldwide range (Hall 1991). In all the developing countries, fuel-wood produces up to 95 % of energy that is consumed yearly. The most domi­nant use of biomass energy is for cooking and heating and also for some other rural industrial activities including beer brewing, brick firing and pottery making. Other uses of biomass include medicine, food, building materials, household utensils and toys. While biomass fuel is essential for survival in many activities, its use is bur­dened with lots of problems. Its use is inefficient as it generates domestic indoor air pollution, resulting in various health problems leading to deadly diseases. It is nor­mally women who are said to be affected the most, since they spend most of their time in cooking inside the dwelling. The gathering of fuel-wood is also labour demanding and excessive use of wood results in soil erosion as mentioned above. There are some major environmental problems arising in the world due to biomass consumption.

The scarcity in fuel-wood has nowadays resulted in the people of third world countries to rely on the enormous crop residues and animal dung as an alternative sources of fuel, where households are forced to purchase wood from vendors for domestic use. In such a situation, finding the necessary cash to purchase wood or an alternative energy sources, creates an additional burden on the people residing in rural areas. During the decline in woody biomass, a huge array of the use of this versatile resource is affected to its maximum. This means that as the woody bio­mass supply diminishes rapidly, the availability of all the artefacts that comes from trees are also affected due to the uprising circumstances. Since, the woody biomass serves as an important source of energy that is currently the most significant source of sustainable as well as renewable mode of energy production in today’s world. The woody biomass, due to its importance and continued dependence of limited, primarily fixed land occupancy are further burdening the available woodland resources in order to meet the energy needs of the ever growing population. Also in recent years, the occurrences of the continuous changes in woodland occupancy are significantly altering the overall biomass production and subsequent energy genera­tion. Due to such unreliable statistics, the modelling of a structure to meet the domestic energy demands at a local level is becoming a challenge (Banks et al. 1996). In 2010, the extensive and global use of woody biomass for energy was about 3.8 Gm3/year (30 EJ/year), which consisted mainly of 1.9 Gm3/year (16 EJ/year) for household fuel-wood and 1.9 Gm3/year (14 EJ/year) for large-scale industrial use in general. During the same period, the world’s primary energy consumption was estimated at 541 EJ/year and world’s renewable primary energy consumption was observed to be 71 EJ/year, according to International Energy Association (IEA) (2013, http://www. iea. org). Hence in 2010, the woody biomass formed roughly 9 % of the world primary energy consumption and 65 % of world renewable primary energy consumption. Despite the widespread uses of woody biomass for energy, the current consumptions are still substantially below the existing resource potentials available exclusively (Openshaw 2011).

The woody biomass energy potentials do not depend only on the available woody biomass resources but also on the competition between the factors such as alterna­tive uses of those resources and alternative sources of energy in a very consistent manner (Radetzki 1997; Sedjo 1997). These effects can be depicted and separated by using the concept of supply and demand curves which has been defining its importance. The energy wood supply curve defines the amount of woody biomass which is made available for large-scale energy production at various hypothetical energy wood prices, i. e. it summarizes all the relevant information and data regard­ing its application from the biomass sector needed to model large-scale energy wood uses. On the other hand, the energy wood demand curve defines the desired amount of woody biomass required for large-scale energy production at various hypothetical energy wood costs.

The woody biomass is a prevailing attractive feedstock that can be sustainably obtained from nature through the process of photosynthesis for bio-ethanol production (Arato et al. 2005; Zhu et al. 2010). The hybrid poplars in well-managed planta­tions, native lodgepole pine represents a major wood species from forest thinning of the unmanageable forests that are available in large volumes. This requires value — added utilizations to diminish expensive thinning cost for sustainable healthy forest and ecosystem management exclusively in the environment. Thus the intensive utilization of lodge pole pine for bio-ethanol provides an important sector of the feedstock supply which in other words contributes to future economy based on bio­fuels. The woody biomass possess high fibre with strong physical characteristics in addition to significant amount of lignocellulose material than any other feedstock such as agricultural residues, grasses and agricultural waste which makes it more obstinate to enzymatic destruction leading to serious threat (Sassner et al. 2008; Shi et al. 2009). This gives an idea that the woody biomass research should emphasize majorly the upstream processing, i. e. the pretreatment and also the size reduction phenomenon to overcome the inherent recalcitrance which further enhances the subsequent enzymatic saccharification of polysaccharides. The chemical pretreat­ments are commonly capable of improving, generating the enzymatic digestibility of biomass by means of diminishing the non-cellulosic constituents (Chen et al. 2009; Rawat et al. 2013) increasing the size of pore (Grethlein 1985) and breaking down fibre crystallization in a very consistent order (Kamireddy et al. 2013).

The microstructure composition of natural fibers is complex due to the hierarchical organization of the different compounds present at various amounts. Natural fibers are composed of a plurality of walls. These walls are formed of crystalline microfi­brils based on cellulose connected by lignin and hemicelluloses. These walls vary in their composition (ratio cellulose, lignin, pectin, and hemicelluloses ratios) and the orientation of microcellulose fibril.

Chemical composition varies with the type of fibers. These constituents contribute to the overall properties of the fibers. The concept of variability of fiber is important and must be considered in the case of the natural fibers. The origin and method of extraction of fibers lead to variation in dimensional and structural properties of fibers (density, diameter, length, cellulose percentage, microfibrillar angle). These different structural and dimensional characteristics will influence mechanical and thermal properties of fibers. The technique used to determine the structural proper­ties of natural fibers is the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) (Fig. 14.1).

Figure 14.1 shows the FTIR curves of some raw natural fibers performed in the range of 4,000-600 cm-1. It was observed the main peaks of fiber constituent as lignocellulosic compounds: cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin (Yang et al. 2007) (1,730, 1,630, and 1,030 cm-1).

Generally, in a composite material the content and orientation of reinforcement fibers determine the elastic properties. Similarly, natural fibers, the characteristic properties of fibers are mainly determined by chemical and physical composition such as structure, cellulose percentage, microfibrillar angle, and polymerization degree (Rowell et al. 2000; Bledzki and Gassan 1999; Arrakhiz et al. 2013b). Similarly, the microfibrillar angle is inversely proportional to the resistance and hardness of fiber (Yang et al. 2007).

The scanning electron microscopy is used for determination of morphologic properties of the fibers. The samples were coated with gold prior measurement. The Fig. 14.2 shows the Alfa, Doum, Pine cone, Hemp, Coir, and Bagasse fibers of

cross-section and along the fiber. It’s clearly observed that the microfibrillar shape is tubular and the fiber section is circular; at high magnification a single fiber is composed of several microfibers. It was also shown that the fibers are twisted.

The natural fibers area subjected to degradation during composite processing. The thermal degradation of fibers (a critical feature for their application as filler or reinforcement) is reduced to a low level of hemicelluloses. The temperature degra­dation of fibers limits the choice of the matrix. The thermal decomposition of natu­ral fibers was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Natural fibers were heated under air to 600 °C at a rate of 10 °C/min to provide the mass loss, decomposition temperature, and maximum decomposition peak.

The TGA curves of fibers (Hemp and Coir) generally show two major degrada­tion temperature peaks, which are known as the two main-stage degradation of natu­ral fibers, the first at range of 220-260 °C and the second at range of 430-460 °C (Fig. 14.3). The first shoulder peak is corresponding to the hemicelluloses degrada­tion and the second shoulder peak is due to the cellulose and lignin degradation.