Bagasse is a side product of sugar cane extraction. A sugar factory produces bagasse of about 13% from the total cane milled. According to the data from BPPS (1999-2007) the total bagasse produced is about two million tons. The aim of this study is to determine the value of activation energy and pre-exponential factor of pyrolysis kinetics of sugar cane bagasse. Pyrolysis had been carried out in a reactor made of steel pipe type 5737 with a dimension of 7.62 cm dia and of 37 cm long.The reactor was inserted into a furnace with a diameter of 15.24 cm and a length of 40 cm. One hundred and fifty grams of bagasse had been added into the reactor without the presence of oxygen at atmospheric pressure. Pyrolysis had been carried out at the particle size of (-20+25) mesh, (-25+30) mesh, (-30+35) mesh, (-35+40) mesh, and -40 mesh and heating rate of 100, 105, 115, and 120 volt.
Modification of Koufopanos mechanism described four reaction steps, namely the reaction to produce intermediate product and further reaction in which intermediate product converted into gas, bio-oil, and char product was the most appropriate reaction model. From the modified model the activation energy E1, E2, E3, and E4 was 8,750.48; 2,350.7 ; 11,080.97 ; and 6,625.49 J/mol, respectively, while the pre-exponential factor A1, A2, A3, and A4 was 9.20x10-3 ; 2.13x10-2 ; 1.67 ; and 2.31 second, respectively for various size particles and heating rates.