Up to now, calcium carbide has been produced on an industrial scale exclusively by the electrothermal method. Very high-temperature operation should be used, and this results in high capital, a nd some serious environmental problems if open or half-covered furnaces a re used. A chemical equilibrium calculation conducted in this laboratory shows that if we add a certain amount of argon into the precursors, the required temperature for chemical equilibrium of the system can be reduced to 1400-1500 degrees C. We have been guided to develop a d.c. plasma-heated fluidized bed for the preparation of calcium carbide. Preliminary experiments include cold fluidization, measurement of heat-transfer coefficient, production of calcium carbide and measurement of conversion rate. It was found that 84.3% conversion is reached in an argon atmosphere under atmospheric pressure and an operation temperature of 1400-1450 degrees C. X-ray diffraction analysis and SEM show that the generated calcium carbide is of good quality.