Biomass gasification in fluidized beds is a complex process in which particles occur in a wide range of size and density. In this paper, the mixing behavior of the char, biomass and bed material in a gasification reactor of a typical dual fluidized bed (DFB) system was investigated in a cold flow model. Experiments with ternary mixtures were performed in which the size and the density of the used particles were varied. For the experiments, a cold flow model was constructed with a full bed material recirculation loop, similar to DFB systems. Experiments revealed that at low fluidization velocities, the smaller char particles and biomass particles occur more preferentially in the bed material recirculation stream. If the fluidization velocities are increased, this tendency diminishes. Furthermore, the experiments showed that the mass fraction of biomass particles in the recirculation stream is always higher than that of the lighter char particles. It is also shown that the current design of the gasification reactor in DFB systems is not optimal. A way to overcome this issue in existing plants is presented. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.