ABSTRACT
Energy can be obtained from seven major energy sources: coal, oil, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, and biomass. The first four are non-renewable energy sources that are rapidly depleting today. Others are renewable energy sources, which are becoming more popular because they do not pollute the environment. The most intriguing is biomass energy. Biomass energy is a clean renewable source of energy that is generated or produced from living or once-living organisms such as plants and animals. Historically, the most common biomass materials used were plant and animal waste. In recent years, research has been expanded to produce bioenergy from various biomass. Direct conversion, chemical, thermochemical, and biological methods are used for biomass energy conversion. Pyrolysis, hydrothermal, and gasification processes were used to generate high-quality, liquid, and gaseous forms of fuel during thermochemical conversion. Liquid or gaseous fuel was produced through chemical and biological processes. Depending on the end-use, biomass energy is used directly (heat and electricity) or indirectly (biofuels), and has many applications such as transportation fuels, power generation, and so on.
