ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the characteristics of the woody biomass, then discuss various thermochemical biomass conversion technologies, followed by the requirements on appropriate mc of the biomass for efficient and quality energy production. Combustion is a mature technology which converts the biomass directly to heat in the forms of hot flue gas, hot water or steam. The steam can then be used as a heating source or for power generation. Dryers suitable for drying of biomass include batch through-circulation dryer, packed moving bed dryer, direct rotary dryer, indirect rotary dryer , fluidized bed dryer, and pneumatic conveying dryer. The rotary dryer is one of the most commonly used technologies in woody biomass drying. It is effective for handling both sawdust and chips. Pneumatic dryers are gas-solid transport systems with a convective heat and mass transfer process. This type of dryer can achieve rapid drying with short residence time by fully entraining the material in flowing gas at high velocities.
