Catalytic steam gasification of a cellulose surrogate using a fluidizable Ni/a-alumina catalyst is presented. Experiments were carried out in the CREC fluidized riser simulator. On this basis, a reaction network and a kinetic model for biomass catalytic steam gasification were proposed. This kinetic model was developed using a sound reaction engineering approach where reaction rates for various species are the result of the algebraic addition of dominant reactions. The modeling procedure also included the decoupled determination of intrinsic kinetic parameters and adsorption constants as allowed in the CREC riser simulator. The implemented approach eliminates overparametrization with successfully parameter correlation. Numerical regression of the experimental data led to intrinsic kinetic parameters with narrow spans showing that the proposed kinetic model satisfactorily describe the catalytic conversion of glucose under the selected gasification conditions. (c) 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012