The work on biomass gasification using EFB as biomass is limited in the literature. Ogi et al. (2013) investigated EFB gasification in entrained flow gasifier using steam and steam-O2 as gasification agent. They reported that pure steam gasification is in favor of more hydrogen production compared to steam-O2 for EFB gasification. Because of using steam-O2 the amount of CO2 increased while H2 and CO decreased in the system. Furthermore, TG analysis shows that EFB decomposed easily to the gases in the presence of steam and there is very low amount of tar in steam gasifica­tion of EFB. Furthermore, they observed that the EFB well gasified in the presence of steam compared to the cedar wood under same operating conditions and predicts high gasification rate as well.

Lahijani and Zainal (2011) investigated EFB air gasification in pilot scale fluid­ized bed gasifier. They studied the effect of temperature and equivalence ratio on the product gas composition. They predicted maximum of 20 vol.% hydrogen at 1,323 K. The maximum carbon conversion and cold gas efficiency was predicted 93 % and 72 %, respectively.

Mohammed et al. (2011a, 2011b) studied for hydrogen-rich gas from EFB as biomass in fluidized bed gasifier using air as gasification agent. They investigated the effect of temperature, particle size, and equivalence ratio on the hydrogen pro­duction using bench scale system. They predicted maximum 38.02 vol.% of hydro­gen at 1,273 K. They reported that lower particle size of EFB is in favor of more hydrogen.

Ismail et al. (2011) investigated the effect of CaO on EFB gasification in the presence of O2 and He. They reported that CaO played a very good catalyst for the gasification of EFB. The H2/CO ratio was increased by increasing temperature in the presence of CaO. Furthermore, nanosize of CaO increased 56 % more hydrogen compared to the bulk CaO. Their results showed that the high production of hydro­gen can be obtained at 973 K using EFB in dry conditions via O2-He gasification.