This investigation focused on the effect of the operating parameters, barite content and particle size on the minimum fluidization velocity and particle agglomerate sizes of select LiF-barite binary mixtures. Experimental results showed that the relative fluidization in the bed of a binary mixture was better than the fluidization of a single component LiF bed. Results also identified two distinct regions in binary mixtures; namely the fragmentation and lubrication regions. In addition, it was found that the Zhou-Li model could be used to predict particle agglomerate sizes by explaining the forces present between agglomerate particles. The calculated results for the binary system agreed well with experimental data. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.