The pyrolysis kinetics of blooming-forming cyanobacteria was studied using thermogravimetric analysis at heating rates of 5-20 degrees C/min. The pyrolysis process appeared in three stages: dehydration, primary devolatilization, and residual decomposition. With the increasing heating rate, the maximum rate of weight loss and the peak temperature increased. The mean values of the activation energy were calculated to be 181.18, 181.49, and 233.93 kJ/mol by the Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose method, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method, and Friedman method, respectively. The master-plots method suggested that n-order model was the most probable reaction mechanism to describe the pyrolysis of cyanobacteria and the reaction model function was f(alpha) = (1-alpha)(5.3).