Experimental and numerical investigation of biomass combustion Decarbonisation of energy is, currently, a massive task before engineers and scientists. A large number of low carbon and zero carbon energy production methods are being investigated worldwide. Amongst these, bio-energy is one of the most promising ones. Living marine and land plants absorb solar energy and CO2 from the atmosphere/hydrosphere and turn them into energy containing materials, such as wood or agricultural waste, which are collectively called biomass. Unlike combustion of fossil fuels, burning of biomass does not result in increasing the carbon content of the atmosphere. Further, if combined with carbon capture technologies, it can lead to negative carbon emission. This aspect of combustion of biomass along with its widespread availability has made it an attractive energy resource for future. However, there exist significant technical difficulties in the deployment of biomass combustion at an industrial scale. Biomass has a complex and varying composition and the fundamentals of biomass combustion, compared to those of fossil fuels, are not well understood. This lack of understanding, currently, poses significant challenges to the design and operation of biomass burners. This doctoral research aims to obtain further understating of the fundamental physical and chemical processes involved in the combustion of biomass. These include heat and mass transfer, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. The research will involve extensive numerical and theoretical studies as well as laboratory tests for validation purposes.