Review of combustion, pyrolysis, gasification in biomass power plants

This review exposes the combustion systems, gasification and pyrolysis of biomass in the main aspects related to the development and current state of art. Biomass gasification is an interesting technology in the future development of a worldwide sustainable energy system, which can help to decrease our current dependence on fossil fuels. Biomass gasification is a thermal process where solid fuel is converted into a useful gas using several gasifying agents such as air, and steam. The producer gas has a great number of applications. The most important is being combustion for power and heat generation as well as raw gas for production of fuels or chemicals. These technologies have historically been based upon partial oxidation or partial combustion principles, resulting in the production of a hot, dirty, low calorific value gas that must be directly ducted into boilers or dryers. In addition to limiting applications and often compounding environmental problems, these technologies are an inefficient source of usable energy. Biomass gasification is the latest generation of biomass energy conversion processes aimed to increase the efficiency.