Paper waste generation has been rising in the past decades, with a large amount being landfilled. These paper wastes can be great energy sources after thermal treatment since they are considered carbon neutral. These wastes contain mainly cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and some minerals. The thermal decomposition of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin have been extensively studied, however, the knowledge of thermal degradation of paper wastes at lower temperatures, which are more practical for industrial applications are still lacking. In this study, paper wastes have been characterized and thermogravimetric analyses were performed from 200°C to 400°C and the char produced were analyzed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Two kinetic approaches were taken while developing the kinetic model of paper waste thermal degradation: (i) reconstructing the TGA results of paper waste thermal degradation by an additive law of the degradation of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin; (ii) considering paper waste as one material and develop a multi-step consecutive reaction mechanism that focuses on solid products at different temperatures. It was observed that there are potential interactions between cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin during paper waste degradation. Therefore, the second approach was concluded to be more plausible, and one set of kinetic parameters were determined according to the experimental results at different temperatures. These results provided insights into the degradation kinetic mechanism and solid product distribution of the paper waste. It was found that the first reaction was due to dehydration of cellulose and the 6^th and 7^th reaction can be attributed to the thermal degradation of lignin. The NMR and FTIR results also validated that the cellulose started degrading at lower temperatures, and lignin degradation became more pronounced at higher temperatures.

在过去的几十年里，废纸的产生量一直在增加，大量垃圾被填埋。这些废纸经过热处理后可以成为很好的能源，因为它们被认为是碳中性的。这些废物主要包含纤维素、半纤维素、木质素和一些矿物质。纤维素、半纤维素和木质素的热分解已被广泛研究，然而，在较低温度下对纸废料进行热降解的知识仍然缺乏，这些知识在工业应用中更实用。在这项研究中，对废纸进行了表征，并在 200°C 至 400°C 范围内进行了热重分析，并通过核磁共振 (NMR) 光谱和傅里叶变换红外 (FTIR) 光谱分析了产生的焦炭。在开发废纸热降解动力学模型时采用了两种动力学方法：(i) 通过纤维素、半纤维素和木质素降解的可加定律重建废纸热降解的 TGA 结果；(ii) 将废纸视为一种材料，并开发一种多步连续反应机制，重点关注不同温度下的固体产品。据观察，在废纸降解过程中，纤维素、半纤维素和木质素之间存在潜在的相互作用。因此，得出第二种方法更合理的结论，并根据不同温度下的实验结果确定了一组动力学参数。这些结果提供了对废纸的降解动力学机制和固体产物分布的深入了解。^th和 7 ^th反应可归因于木质素的热降解。NMR 和 FTIR 结果还证实，纤维素在较低温度下开始降解，而木质素降解在较高温度下变得更加明显。