In order to solve the problem of parameter estimation of nonlinear model in chemical engineering, a novel heuristic optimization approach is presented. The proposed approach develops and employs particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique to search for optimal solution of the parameter estimation. Firstly, the proposed approach converts the problem of parameter estimation of nonlinear model into an equation solving problem that is prone to be optimized. Secondly, two extrema of PSO are used as the target, and all the particles synchronously move through the solution space roundly and efficiently to find the optimum parameter estimation. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated by the parameter estimation example of the pyrolysis model for fir.