Fresh biomass self-moisture gasification (BSMG) is a promising route for biomass utilization. Unlike conventional biomass steam gasification (BSG), BSMG used the moisture content in biomass as the gasifying agent. In this work, the performance of biomass self-moisture chemical looping gasification (BSM-CLG) was compared with dry biomass chemical looping gasification (DB-CLG) and biomass steam chemical looping (BS-CLG) gasification. The data analyzed was the gas cumulative compositions, the hydrogen-to-carbon monoxide ratio (H-2/CO), the lower heating value (LHV) and the gas yield. Results showed that the moisture content increased the gas yield from 0.9927 Nm(3) kg(-1) to 1.1646 Nm3 kg(-1), while the steam increased the H-2/CO ratio from 0.6398 mol mol(-1) to 0.7436 mol mol(-1) in the process. The interaction between OC and biomass moisture increased the biomass reactivity. The differing gasification reactivity was due to different water diffusion between the methods of biomass gasification. The diffusion of moisture content and steam had opposite directions, and the different diffusion led to the moisture content impacted the initial gasification stage, but the steam influenced the biomass molecular structure rearrangement. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.