The principal aim of this work is to model a steady reactive flow in a gasification reactor using the Finite-Rate Approach within a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework. Using this model, the optimal conditions for hydrogen production during biomass steam gasification were determined. In addition, this model was utilized to simulate the effects of the reaction parameters (e.g. gasification temperature, steam to biomass ratio and adsorbent to biomass ratio) for the production of hydrogen. In this work, the hydrodynamic and reaction models were developed concurrently. The reaction model which was empirically validated was developed and implemented using ANSYS Fluent®V6.3. Some comparative analyses were carried out between the simulated and experimental results. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.