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Catalytic gasification of bamboo in a laboratory-scale, fluidized bed reactor was investigated. Experiments were performed to determine the effects of reactor temperature (400, 500, and 600 ∘ C), gasifying medium (air and air/steam), and catalyst to biomass ratio (0 : 1, 1 : 1, and 1.5 : 1) on product gas composition, H 2 /CO ratio, carbon conversion efficiency, heating value, and tar conversion. From the results obtained, it was shown that at 400 ∘ C with air/steam gasification, maximum hydrogen content of 16.5% v/v, carbon conversion efficiency of 98.5%, and tar conversion of 80% were obtained. The presence of catalyst was found to promote the tar reforming reaction and resulted in improvement of heating value, carbon conversion efficiency, and gas yield due to increases in H 2 , CO, and CH 4 . The presence of steam and dolomite had an effect on the increasing of tar conversion.

Corn residues are abundantly available, but utilizing this potential biomass energy source is limited by their low density and non-uniform physical characteristics. Densification may be used to solve this problem. Many studies have used high temperature and pressure to compress biomass materials into pellets, as well as expensive additives to produce high-quality pellets. In this study, we investigated whether moderate temperature and pressure with a binding agent from an inexpensive and environmentally friendly source offers an alternative solution. We used locally available algae (Spirogyra sp. and Chara sp.) as a binding agent for densification of corncobs and studied the effects of pressure (100-200 MPa) and algae-to-biomass ratio (10-40% w/w), at a fixed die temperature of 30°C, on pellet characteristics. We found that algae can be successfully used as binder for densification of biomass. Using the algae at 20% w/w or less with an applied pressure of 150-200 MPa improved the relaxed density of the pellets by 250-285%, higher than the bulk density of the original corncobs before compaction, with energy density of 12-14 GJ/m 3 .