The mitigation of CO 2 emissions has become a global priority in the iron and steel industry. One promising solution to decrease CO 2 emissions is recycling of the blast furnace top gas to be reused in the reduction of iron oxide. In this study, iron oxide compacts were reduced isothermally with simulated conventional blast furnace top gas (BFTG: 20%CO, 20%CO 2 , 5%H 2 , 55%N 2 ) at 700-900uC using a thermogravimetric technique. The reduction reached 30-34% depending on the applied temperature. The compacts were reduced completely to wü stite (Fe 0?925 O or Fe 0?971 O) with a few grains of metallic iron, which appeared only at 900uC. To investigate the reduction behaviour at the later stages, the compacts reduced with BFTG at 900uC were followed by isothermal reduction with simulated blast furnace shaft gas (BFSG: 30%CO, 5%CO 2 , 10%H 2 , 55%N 2 ) at 950-1100uC. The total reduction extents were increased to 66-90% at 950-1100uC respectively. The remaining unreduced wü stite (Fe 0?974 O) has a higher Fe/O ratio compared with that formed by reduction with BFTG. At the initial stages of reduction, the rate controlling mechanism was interfacial chemical reaction, while at the later stages, solid state diffusion was the rate controlling mechanism. Reflected light microscope, scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and Poresizer techniques are used to estimate the reduction kinetic and mechanisms.