The pyrolysis behavior of cellulose has been investigated by using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The non-isothermal TGA data obtained at different heating rates have been analyzed simultaneously. Pattern Search Method has been proposed for the estimation of the model parameter values. Predicted values from the logistic distributed activation energy model have been compared with the experimental data and the results have indicated that the model describes the kinetic behavior of cellulose pyrolysis very well. The mean value and standard deviation of the logistic activation energy distribution for cellulose pyrolysis are found to be 258.5718 kJ mol(-1) and 2.6601 kJ mol(-1), the reaction order is 1.1101 and the k(0) is 1.6218 x 10(17) s(-1). Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.