LAUSR

Abstract Cotton and polyester are the main elements of dryer lint that is generated while drying clothes, and thus it could serve as a promising and sustainable source of renewable energy. In this regard, this is the first research developed to investigate potential applications of dryer lint in the energy recovery field using a pyrolysis process. The suggested strategy was started by collecting dryer lint samples from three different households, followed by analysis of morphology, chemical composition, and elemental analysis of the collected samples using Scanning Electron Microscope- Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and ICP, FTIR, Elemental Analyser, respectively. Subsequently, TG-FTIR/GC–MS system was employed to study thermal and chemical decomposition of the collected lint samples up to 900 °C and to simulate the pyrolysis process. Also, the effects of heating rates (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 °C/min) on slow pyrolysis properties and the synthesized chemical compounds of lint were investigated. Finally, the kinetic of pyrolysis of dryer lint for each heating rate using a model-free methods, including Kissinger, Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose, Flynn–Wall–Ozawa, and Friedman model was studied based on the TGA-DTG results. The results showed that the collected lint samples contained a huge amount of polyester, cellulose, etc., that could facilitate significantly the conversion energy process. Meanwhile, the model-free model indicated that the activation energy (Ea) of lint pyrolysis was estimated in the range 167−204 kJ/mol. Also, it was observed that CH2, CH3, Carbon dioxide, acid, phenol, carbonyl, methane compounds are present in the resulted FTIR spectra, especially at a heating rate (25 °C/min). While GC–MS results at 25 °C/min showed that Isobutane (10.77 %), Furan, 3-methyl- (4.78 %), Furfural (6.48 %), carbon dioxide (11.68 %), etc. compounds were strongly present in the synthesized volatile products, which means that lint could be a new sustainable biomass source for renewable energy.