This book offers comprehensive coverage of the design, analysis, and operational aspects of biomass gasification, the key technology enabling the production of biofuels from all viable sources--some examples being sugar cane and switchgrass. This versatile resource not only explains the basic principles of energy conversion systems, but also provides valuable insight into the design of biomass gasifiers. The author provides many worked out design problems, step-by-step design procedures and real data on commercially operating systems. After fossil fuels, biomass is the most widely used fuel in the world. Biomass resources show a considerable potential in the long term if residues are properly handled and dedicated energy crops are grown.

Dr. Prabir Basu, founding President of Greenfield Research Incorporated, a private research and development company in Canada that specializes in gasification and torrefaction, is an active researcher and designer of biomass energy conversion systems. Dr. Basu holds a position of Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department and is Head of Circulating Fluidized Bed Laboratory at Dalhousie University, Halifax His current research interests include frontier areas, chemical looping gasification, torrefaction, biomass cofiring amongst others.Professor Basu also founded of the prestigious triennial International Conference series on Circulating Fluidized Beds, and a private R&D company, Fluidized Bed Systems Limited that specializes on design, training and investigative services on fluidized bed boilers. Professor Basu has been working in the field of energy conversion and the environment for more than 30 years. Prior to joining the engineering faculty at Dalhousie University (formerly known as the Technical University of Nova Scotia), he worked with both a government research laboratory and a boiler manufacturing company.Dr. Basu's passion for the transformation of research results into industrial practice is well known, as is his ongoing commitment to spreading advanced knowledge around the world. He has authored more than 200 research papers and seven monographs in emerging areas of energy and environment, some of which have been translated into Chinese and Korean. He is well known internationally for providing expert advices on circulating fluidized bed boilers and conducting training courses to industries and universities across the globe.

1. Introduction 2. Environmental and Economic issues of biomass gasification 3. Biomass characteristics base 4. Pyrolysis of biomass 5. Tar issues in gasification 6. Kinetics & Modeling of biomass gasification 7. Design of Biomass gasifiers 8. Gasification in supercritical fluid 9. Agglomeration problem of biomass 10. Feeding and handling of biomass 11. Appendix & Design data