## 3 Results and Discussion
### Kinetics  
Figure 5 presents a comparative analysis of the variation in activation energy as a function of the degree of conversion for both chitin and chitosan. Additionally, different kinetic models have been evaluated and compared. For this purpose, the Friedman, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO), Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS), and Starink iso-conversional methods were analyzed. The kinetic parameter calculation for the carbonization of chitin and chitosan was calculated assuming a reaction order of unity (using the fractional conversion function \(f(\alpha)=(1-\alpha)^{n}\), as suggested by [PERSON] et al. [32]. This approach is supported by findings that the thermal degradation of these macromolecules closely follows an apparent first-order reaction model, which effectively approximates their decomposition kinetics [33]. Specifically, the reaction order being close to unity is consistent with previous studies, which have shown that a first-order kinetic model sufficiently describes the thermal degradation behavior of both chitin and chitosan. To calculate the pre-exponential factor (A), the Friedman method was employed due to its ability to provide accurate estimates through a direct differential approach, correlating the reaction rate with temperature at constant conversion levels. This method complements the activation energy determination from iso-conversional analysis by avoiding integral approximations, thereby yielding reliable kinetic parameters even for complex degradation processes. Figure 5 demonstrates that the Friedman, FWO, KAS, and Starink models exhibit a similar trend in activation energy values across conversion degrees ranging from 0.1 to 0.9. This means that the \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Model** & **Number** & **Total Number** & **Complexity** & & & **Chitosanan** & & & **Chitin** & \\
**Structure** & **of Layers** & **of Neurons** & **Level** & **MSE** & **RMSE** & **MAE** & **RMSE** & **MAE** & **MSE** \\ \hline
1-3-1 & 3 & 5 & 1 & 0.0012 & 0.0326 & 0.0311 & 0.0233 & 0.0211 & 0.0018 \\
2-4-2 & 3 & 8 & 2 & 0.009 & 0.0254 & 0.0255 & 0.0189 & 0.0375 & 0.007 \\
5-5-5 & 3 & 15 & 3 & 0.0010 & 0.0266 & 0.0199 & 0.0298 & 0.0149 & 0.008 \\
5-10-5 & 3 & 20 & 4 & 0.0016 & 0.0189 & 0.0143 & 0.0156 & 0.0259 & 0.0010 \\
5-20-5 & 3 & 30 & 5 & 0.0015 & 0.0195 & 0.0281 & 0.0181 & 0.0247 & 0.0012 \\
10-20-10 & 3 & 40 & 6 & 0.009 & 0.0233 & 0.0131 & 0.0259 & 0.0254 & 0.0015 \\
5-10-20-5 & 4 & 40 & 7 & 0.0012 & 0.0278 & 0.0125 & 0.0222 & 0.0355 & 0.0010 \\
5-20-20-5 & 4 & 50 & 8 & 0.0017 & 0.0398 & 0.0081 & 0.0269 & 0.0092 & 0.0014 \\
10-20-20-10 & 4 & 60 & 9 & 0.0012 & 0.0415 & 0.0237 & 0.0369 & 0.0287 & 0.0011 \\
15-20-20-15 & 4 & 70 & 10 & 0.009 & 0.0429 & 0.0393 & 0.0355 & 0.0375 & 0.007 \\
10-20-20-10-10 & 5 & 70 & 11 & 0.0018 & 0.0548 & 0.0449 & 0.0487 & 0.0426 & 0.0015 \\
15-20-20-20-15 & 5 & 90 & 12 & 0.0020 & 0.0619 & 0.0505 & 0.0512 & 0.0445 & 0.0019 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Comparison of the statistical parameters of different ANN models. thermal degradation process follows a similar pathway, regardless of the specific kinetic approach used. To put it in other words, the similar trend in activation energy estimation across different methodologies suggests that the material exhibits intrinsic kinetic behavior that is accurately captured by all four models. However, variations in numerical values were observed across the utilized models, attributable to differences in their underlying assumptions and approximations. Figure 4: (**a**) The comparison of the experimental and predicted TG (%) values for the chitosan data set. (**b**) The comparison of the experimental and predicted TG (%) values for the chitin data set. The average activation energy of the carbonization process provides insight into the thermal degradation behavior, where a lower activation energy indicates that degradation occurs more readily and at lower temperatures in chemical kinetics.