In the present work, the influence of reaction and mass transfer on the fluidized-bed methanation have been investigated by both experiments and modeling. By applying spatially resolved gas concentration and temperature measurements in a bench-scale fluidized-bed reactor, it was shown that most of the reaction proceeds in the first 20 mm while the temperature increases by 74 K in the first 2 mm of the bed. A CO conversion of practically 100% is achieved. The experimental data indicate that the measured gas composition represents mainly the dense phase and that mass transfer between bubble and dense phase is the dominant effect in the upper part of the bed. A fluidized-bed model is proposed based on the two-phase model approach, hydrodynamic correlations from the literature and kinetic parameters previously determined. Although it was not possible to reproduce all measured phenomena within the methanation reactor, this first attempt to model the fluidized bed provides a better understanding of the behavior...