Higher order approximations to coal pyrolysis distribution

Coal pyrolysis is a complex process involving a large number of chemical reactions. Pyrolysis is a key step in all coal conversion processes. The Distributed Activation Energy Model (DAEM) is a state-of-the art approach to the problem of predicting the amount of volatile released versus activation energy or time. The distribution of mass released is usually assumed to be Gaussian. We present an inverse iterative approach together with a smoothing function to estimate the underlying distribution directly from volatilisation data.