**5. Conclusion**

The commercialization of biomass gasification is still at the early stage of development and leaves a lot to be desired on the technology aspect. In particular, large-scale utilization of biomass still needs to overcome the challenge of biomass collection and transportation, due to its low energy density. However, in some small communities, with large amount of local biomass materials, using biomass to replace polluting fossil fuels is a competitive way for providing reliable and clean power and heat.

This chapter provides the current technique status and development condition in China. It concludes that the gasification of biomass waste with distributed power generation would be a potential market. The properties of biomass feedstock have been analyzed and both advantage and disadvantage of biomass utilization were pointed out. Consequently, highly dispersed property and the low volumetric of biomass limit its large-scale application. Apart from that, this chapter also detailed some common types of gasifiers, except some emerging technologies, for meeting special requirements such as supercritical water gasification (SCWG) for wet biomass and plasma gasification for toxic organic waste. The tar issue, one of the most baffling problems in biomass gasification, is introduced briefly as well as its removal technologies. In our view, the socio-environmental impact is not the primary factor for restriction of biomass gasification development, while an objective financial return can actually attract investors and accelerate commercialization; in the meantime, it will also contribute to other technical breakthroughs.
