A novel solar chemical reactor has been designed and tested for kinetic experiments with mum-sized metal oxide particles. The solar reactor is essentially a tubular reactor with a continuous feed ofparticles suspended in a carrier gas. The suspension is electrically preheated in the back part of the solar reactor. Chemical conversion occurs in the high-temperature zone in the front part of the solar reactor where concentrated solar radiation enters the reactor through a quartz window. Under typical operating conditions, the particle residence time in the high-temperature zone was estimated to be 50 ms. Reduction of manganese iron oxides showed that flux-density distributions of 450 to 770 W . cm(-2) produced maximum particle temperatures of 2,200 K Chemical reactivity studies also revealed that quenching is insufficient for very reactive materials. Therefore, an alternative quench device has been tested at room temperature and is discussed here.