Chemical-looping combustion has emerged as a promising alternative technology, intrinsically integrating CO2 capture in power production. A novel reactor concept based on dynamically operated packed beds has been proposed [Noorman, S., van Sint Annaland, M., Kuipers, JAM., 2007. Packed bed reactor technology for chemical-looping combustion. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 46, 4212-4220] and in this work, packed bed chemical-looping combustion was investigated experimentally to provide an experimental proof-of-principle. Using information obtained from both the reduction and oxidation cycles, the measured maximum temperature rise and front velocities in the packed bed during the oxidation cycle corresponded very well with analytical expressions describing the system, especially when the contribution of the formation of carbon during the reduction cycle was taken into account. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.