Oxy-fuel fluidized bed (FB) combustion is considered one of the promising ways to control CO2 emission from coal-fired power plants. The effect of H2O on the char conversion during wet flue-gas recycle, in which the H2O concentration could be around 40%, is still not well understood. To this end, experiments and modeling were performed in this work. Combustion tests with bituminous coal char were carried out in an electrically heated fluidized bed in O-2/CO2, O-2/H2O and O-2/CO2/H2O for various O-2, CO2 and H2O concentrations at the bed temperature of 850 degrees C. At the same time, the influence of the bed temperature and the char size on char combustion was investigated in O-2/CO2/H2O atmosphere. A thermocouple was inserted into the center of the char particle to measure the particle temperature, from which the char combustion characteristics were determined and analyzed. The results indicate that the participation of H2O in the combustion atmosphere enhances the carbon conversion, and it also reduces the particle temperature. A transient char-particle conversion model, taking into account heat and mass transfer from the bed to the particle and heterogeneous combustion and gasification of char, was developed to quantitatively examine the role of H2O. The model shows a good ability to predict the measured char-temperature history. Simulations were carried out to establish the role of H2O in O-2/H2O and O-2/CO2/H2O as in the FB experiments. The model was used to analyze the peak temperature and the burnout time of a char particle, as well as the relative contributions to the consumption of the carbon in the char by O-2 (combustion), and CO2 and H2O (gasification). The results indicate that the endothermic char-H2O reaction is the main reason for the prolongation of the burnout time of char and the decrease in the particle temperature in O-2/CO2/H2O as compared in O-2/CO2. During wet flue-gas recycle, char-O-2 still accounts for a major part of the total carbon consumption, but the contribution of char-H2O to the overall carbon consumption increases with the H2O concentration and cannot be ignored (i.e. when the H2O concentration attains 30%, the contribution of the char-H2O reaction to the overall carbon consumption is 14%). However, the contribution of char-CO2 to the char conversion is limited. (C) 2020 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.