A transient simulation of the heat transfer in a particle directly heated by the sun, in a failing-particle receiver, is presented. The local temperature can have a non-uniform distribution, that depends on many factors, such as the size of the particle, its rotation, and the exposition time. This fact should be considered when studying the material resistance and aging, or direct chemical reactions in the failing particle. The single-particle simulation presented here can be useful to test the validity of the global fluid dynamics simulations, to study single-particle related aspects such as aging, thermal stresses and chemical stability, to study the distribution of temperature if the particles are not uniform in size, or to study the efficiency in chemical applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.