The thermogravimetric profiles of softwood and hardwood
standard dusts, reported in Figs. 1 and 2 respectively,
show several differences, mainly in the temperature range
200–500 C. In this temperature range, the main components
of the wood dust—hemicelluloses, cellulose and
lignin—decompose to give the three characteristic TG
steps and DTG peaks. The different thermal behavior is
clearly enhanced by overlapping all the related DTG curves
collected in Figs. 3 and 4. The TG process in the temperature
range 250–320 C allows to distinguish the different
origin of the wood dust. The DTG curve better demonstrates
the difference: hardwood dust is characterized by a
well-defined DTG peak, while softwood dust DTG peak is
very broad and sometimes absent. In addition, hardwood
dust’s main DTG peak was never found over 360 C. The
comparative plot of all the DTG curves is reported in
Fig. 5.