The objective of this initial year's mission-oriented multi-year program is to develop a process chemistry data base for the mild gasification of coal with emphasis on eastern bituminous coal. One important objective of this program was to obtain the trends in product formation from different coals as a function of several process variables which included temperature, pressure, coal particle residence time, coal flow rate, type of additives such as lime, limestone, silica flour and ash in a short period of time. This was achieved by a careful development of a test matrix using a fractional factorial statistical design. The equipment used was the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) combination stirred moving-bed, entrained-tubular reactor which is capable of processing 2 to 3 pounds of coal per hour. A Wellmore Kentucky No. 8 bituminous coal, a Pittsburgh No. 8 bituminous coal and a Mississippi lignite with particles having a size of 150 {mu}m or less were selected for this study. The mild gasification experiments were conducted at temperatures from 550{degree} to 650{degree}C at nitrogen sweep gas pressures of 15 to 50 psi and residence times of 0.1 to 2 min. The coal flow rate was 0. 4 to 1.0 lb/hr and the concentration of the lime additives was 0 to 10% by weight of the dry coal feed. All variables were tested at two different levels, low and high, corresponding to the above ranges of the variables. A rapid calculation of the main effects and interactions was made using Yate's algorithm and the significance of the effects was determined from the normal probability plots. 10 refs., 26 figs., 11 tabs.