A newly designed fluidized bed dryer for drying biomass was proposed and evaluated on its hydrodynamic and drying performance. Full fluidizationcouldbeestablishedrightatthebeginningforlowsawdustmoisturecontents.Forhighsawdustmoisturecontents,the fluidization behavior could be divided into three stages: partial fluidization, full fluidization with an increasing drying rate, and full fluidization with a decreasing drying rate. The current fluidized bed dryer has a high drying rate which is similar to a conventional fluidized bed dryer of a binary mixture, but, more compact and does not require biomass separation from inert particles