A combustion experiment with cedar pellet fuel was carried out in a semi-pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed combustor. The effects of temperature, fluidized velocity, and bed material particle size on the emission of NOx, CO, and CO2 were investigated. The variations in the temperature profile and gas concentration in the vertical and horizontal directions of the combustor were also studied. The results showed that high temperature can improve the combustion efficiency and decrease CO emission. Moreover, increasing the fluidized velocity suppressed CO formation. In addition to temperature and fluidized velocity, the bed material also played an important role during cedar pellet combustion. Coarse bed materials were better than fine materials. In these test runs, the CO emission varied from 20 to 189 ppm, CO2 emission ranged from 5.7% to 19.5%, while NO, emission was quite stable at about 220 ppm. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.