This paper investigates the hydrogen-rich gas produced from biomass employing an updraft gasifier with a continuous biomass feeder. A porous ceramic reformer was combined with the gasifier for producer gas reforming. The effects of gasifier temperature, equivalence ratio (ER), steam to biomass ratio (S/B), and porous ceramic reforming on the gas characteristic parameters (composition, density, yield, low heating value, and residence time, etc.) were investigated. The results show that hydrogen-rich syngas with a high calorific value was produced, in the range of 8.10-13.40 MJ/Nm(3), and the hydrogen yield was in the range of 45.05-135.40 g H-2/kg biomass. A higher temperature favors the hydrogen production. With the increasing gasifier temperature varying from 800 to 950 degrees C, the hydrogen yield increased from 74.84 to 135.4 g H-2/kg biomass. The low heating values first increased and then decreased with the increased ER from 0 to 0.3. A steam/biomass ratio of 2.05 was found as the optimum in the all steam gasification runs. The effect of porous ceramic reforming showed the water-soluble tar produced in the porous ceramic reforming, the conversion ratio of total organic carbon (TOC) contents is between 22.61% and 50.23%, and the hydrogen concentration obviously higher than that without porous ceramic reforming. (C) 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.