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From the conventional use of biomass in the form of heating to the modern day use of biomass in the form of electricity generation and biofuel production, biomass has always been part of the evolution of mankind. Modern day use of biomass is gradually becoming more complex, and engineering played an important role in defining different directions. This review provides an overall view of biomass utilization through thermal treatment including combustion, pyrolysis, and gasification. Efficient use of biomass with the desired output and minimizing the drawbacks are the core of the research, and marginal focus is being held on developing new techniques. The variety of composition and uptake of different elements throughout the lifespan of biomass produces a mixture of results. In general, it can be seen that the optimization was observed either in the form of chemical looping combustion to prevent greenhouse gas emission or in upgrading of bio-oil to produce biofuels. The significant factor is the reaction conditions, which define the ultimate product yield and the products' performance in different applications. Moreover, the development of new systems is desired in the present scenario due to the limited possibility of further improvement in the current systems.

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Summary The processing of waste through pyrolysis technology is gaining momentum worldwide and is considered to be a green technology to reduce CO2 emissions. This study is devoted to analysing the lignocellulosic biomass (date palm) and wastewater‐derived microalgae and the carbon‐rich char produced between temperature range (400°C‐600°C) from these biomass types. The properties of microalgae char showed that significant variation with date palm char exhibited high heating values (24‐28 MJ/kg), low ash content (11%‐16%), and high energy yield (48%‐42%). Algal biomass char showed considerably high nitrogen content (6%‐7%) as compared with date palm char (<1%), lower stability, and more significant influence on the price with respect to treatment temperature. Quaternary, pyrrolic, and pyridinic nitrogen species were found on the surface of the microalgae char, whereas no nitrogen species detected on date palm char due to low nitrogen content. The activation energy was also noted to be high for algal char during pyrolysis and combustion process. It can be concluded that date palm char is suitable for energy applications, whereas, algal char can be used for soil amendment, wastewater treatment, and applications requiring nitrogen‐doped char.