Conventional gasification and chemical looping gasification process of rice straw were studied in a fixed bed tubular furnace with argon as gasification medium and steam added． The cyclic characteristics of pure Fe₂O₃ and hematite as oxygen carrier were compared． The results show that the gasification efficiency of conventional gasi- fication or chemical looping gasification without steam was not high． The combination of steam and oxygen carrier has significantly positive effect on the gasification process，and can obviously improve the H₂ gas yield． At the same time，the carbon conversion efficiency and gasification efficiency can reach 80% ． The gas yield，gasification efficiency and carbon conversion efficiency are optimal，under the condition that the temperature is 850 ℃，the speed of steam pump is 1. 2 r/min，and the Fe₂O₃ /C molar ratio is 0. 25． Ｒaising temperature can promote the gas- ification reactions，but it can easily lead to oxygen carrier deactivation． The oxygen carrier is mainly converted into Fe₃O₄ during the gasification process，and the reactivity of oxygen carrier decreases after multiple redox cycles． Compared with the pure Fe₂O₃ oxygen carrier，hematite shows better stability in the process of cyclic gasification．