In an FT complex, the production of purified syngas typically accounts for 60-70% of the capital and running costs of the total plant (Dry, 2002). The most popular feedstock to provide syngas for the FT synthesis has been coal (German vehicles during the Second World War), but nowadays, natural gas is gaining in importance. Sources of gas are either large, remote reserves of natural gas or the so-called associated gas that cannot be flared any more due to more severe CO2 emission regulations (Dry, 2002; Prins et al., 2005).

Biomass has not yet been commercially applied as a feedstock for the Fischer — Tropsch synthesis (FTS); however, the integration of biomass gasification with FTS has been demonstrated (Boerrigter and den Uil, 2002). Prins et al. (2005) carried out an exergy analysis of biomass integrated gasification FTS, and the maximum thermodynamic efficiency achieved was 46.2%, consisting of 41.8% fuels and 4.4% electricity. The thermodynamic analysis showed that a mild thermal pretreatment of the biomass may improve gasification properties, that is heating value and moisture content. Although proof-of-concept of straw gasification technology scalable to an on-farm production has been demonstrated, little is known about differences among grasses in their suitability as gasification feedstock (Prins et al., 2005).