Abstract: In response to the urgent need for the green transformation of iron and steel industry under the "dual carbon" strategy, gas-based shaft furnace direct reduction technology has emerged as a critical development direction due to its significant carbon reduction potential. The preparation of high-grade direct reduction (DR) pellets represents a core link of this technology. Current research mainly focuses on magnetite pellets while systematic studies on hematite-based pellets especially those prepared by mixing magnetite and hematite have remained relatively insufficient. This study took high-grade hematite (H ore) and magnetite (M ore) as raw materials and systematically explored the preparation process of direct reduction pellets suitable for the production requirements of gas-based shaft furnaces. Four magnetite-hematite blending schemes (B1, B2, B3, B4) were designed.Through systematic pelletizing and roasting experiments, the thermal regime for oxidized pellets preparation was optimized. The results demonstrate that under the appropriate thermal regime, all blending schemes can produce high-quality oxidized pellets with a basicity of 0.3, which are characterized by a compressive strength higher than 2 800 N per pellet, a total iron grade (mass fraction) of over 67.5%, and low contents of harmful elements. Simulated metallurgical performance tests based on the Midrex process show that the reduction index of all blended oxidized pellets reaches 85%-90%, the reduction swelling index is all below 11%, the low-temperature reduction degradation index is less than 2.5%, and the metallization rate exceeds 93%, with all indicators meeting the technical requirements of the Midrex gas-based shaft furnace direct reduction process. This study confirms the feasibility of preparing high-grade DR pellets from magnetite-hematite blends. It not only enriches the raw material system for DR pellet production, but also provides important technical support for reducing the raw material cost of gas-based shaft furnaces and expanding the supply channels of high-quality pellet ore resources. It has positive significance for promoting the large-scale application of gas-based shaft furnace direct reduction technology.