The left of Eq. (6) is designated as ln K. A plot of ln K versus T−1 is an Arrhenius plot and gives a straight line, whose slope and intercept can be used to determine E and A. Arrhenius plot and the pyrolysis kinetic parameters of corn stover treated with fungal mono- and co-culture for 15 days were given in Fig. 4 and Table 3. The results showed that the activation energies of bio-pretreated samples were lower than that of the control sample, but there were no significant differences between mono- and co-culture treated samples. Our results showed that biopretreatment could reduce the
activation energy and enhance the thermal decomposition reaction although relative lignin content was increased, and the activation energies were not directly related with the lignin content. It is supposed that the destruction of the lignocellulosic structure by biotreatment might play amajor role in pyrolysis process. Boateng [39] considered lignin was a high-quality combustion fuel for thermochemical conversion and the activation energy of the reaction weakly increased with lignin content.