In this work, in-situ synchrotron radiation x-ray powder diffraction (SR-XRPD), performed at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) facilities of the Argonne National Laboratory, was applied to investigate the CaO-CO2 reaction. A set of CO2 absorption experiments were conducted in a high temperature reaction capillary with a controlled atmosphere (CO2 partial pressure of 1 bar), in the temperature range between 450 degrees C and 750 degrees C using CaO based sorbents obtained by calcination of commercial calcium carbonate. The evolution of the crystalline phases during CO2 uptake by the CaO solid sorbents was monitored for a carbonation time of 20 min as a function of the carbonation temperature and of the calcination conditions. The Rietveld refinement method was applied to estimate the calcium oxide conversion during the reaction progress and the average size of the initial (at the beginning of carbonation) calcium oxide crystallites. The measured average initial carbonation rate (in terms of conversion time derivative) of 0.280 s(-1) (+/- 13.2% standard deviation) is significantly higher than the values obtained by thermo-gravimetric analysis and reported thus far in the literature. Additionally, a dependence of the conversion versus time curves on the initial calcium oxide crystallite size was observed and a linear relationship between the initial CaO crystallite size and the calcium oxide final conversion was identified. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.