Abstract: The pyrolysis characteristics, mechanism, and products properties of palm kernel shell (PKS) in a bench-scaled fixed bed reactor were investigated by using thermogravimetry-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR), pyrolysis-gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). TG results showed that the pyrolysis of PKS could be devided into three steps, which included drying(25-236℃, 3.42%), main weight loss(236-400℃, 52.31%), and carbonization (400-850℃, 14.90%) stage. The main mass loss stage of PKS pyrolysis was controlled by 1.5 or 2 order reaction model, and the apparent activation energies at heating rates of 10-30 K/min were 67.63-76.47 kJ/mol. The gaseous products were evolved with the sequence of CO2, H2O, CH4, and CO. The quantitative results showed that liquid was the primary pyrolysis product at 600-850℃, with the mass yield of 36.8%-50.9% and energy yield of 41.3%-58.9% according to original material. Py-GC/MS results indicated that the main components of liquid products were phenol, acetic acid, octadecanoic acid, n-hexadecanoic acid, 4-allyl-2,6-dimethoxyphenol, etc.. It was notable that phneols had a higher relative content, accounting for about 12.56%-15.49%. Biochar was an important by-product of PKS pyrolysis, with the mass and energy yield of 20.6%-26.7% and 27.4%-35.0%, respectively. The CO2 gasification reactivity of PKS char was lower than that of rice straw char and wood char.