**Preface to "Woody Biomass for Bioenergy Production"**

The change in the climate policies can increase the use of biomass for bioenergy production. This can lead to greater consumption of woody and herbaceous biomass. Forests are expected to have an important role in climate change mitigation under future climate change policies. As an important renewable and sustainable energy resource, forest biomass is considered as the primary energy resource. In the United States, wood and wood-derived fuels contribute to about 2% of the energy consumed annually. According to the US Department of Energy, wood-based fuels will account for about 9% of the energy consumed by 2030.

Woody biomass can be converted to biofuels by different methods, such as thermal, chemical, and biochemical methods. As an energy source, woody biomass can either be used directly via combustion to produce heat or indirectly after converting it to different biofuels. Woody biomass can generate heat or electricity solely or in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Most of the bioenergy produced from woody biomass is consumed by pulp and paper mills. Also, woody biomass as pellets is widely used for heat and power generation. As an energy feedstock, woody biomass can be used with other energy sources, such as coal. The use of raw woody biomass for bioenergy production is a challenge due to physical properties and chemical composition limitations. Mechanical preprocessing technologies, such as size reduction and densification, and moisture managemen<sup>t</sup> techniques, such as drying, help to address density and moisture issues. To improve the chemical composition, thermal pretreatment, such as torrefaction, is gaining significant importance as it increases the energy content and improves the proximate and ultimate composition, making woody biomass more suitable for cofiring pyrolysis and gasification in solid and liquid fuel production.

The focus of the book is to understand the preprocessing and pretreatments for forest biomass in bioenergy generation. The specific areas covered by this book are how forest biomass for biofuels impacts greenhouse gas emissions; mechanical preprocessing, such as densification of forest residue biomass, to improve physical properties such as size, shape, and density; the impact of thermal pretreatment temperatures on woody biomass chemical composition, physical properties, and microstructure for thermochemical conversions such as pyrolysis and gasification; the grindability of torrefied pellets; use of wood for gasification and as a filter for tar removal; and understanding the pyrolysis kinetics of biomass using thermogravimetric analyzers.

> **Jaya Shankar Tumuluru** *Editor*

*Review*
